


Shaken by a Low Sound

by Whiskeytango86



Series: ...For the Rest of Mine [1]
Category: The Last of Us
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Romance, Slow Burn, Spoilers, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-08
Updated: 2020-07-27
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:07:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 75,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25147459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whiskeytango86/pseuds/Whiskeytango86
Summary: "Dina brought the button-up close to her face, slowly closed her eyes, and deeply breathed in the lingering scent.It smelled like…...like the earth out in the woods.Like the soap they all shared in the bath, tinged with lavender.Like the oil she had watched Ellie rub into the fretboard of her old guitar.Like whiskey.Like Ellie."A slow burn, Dina-centric story, about whether or not love can ever find it's way back home through hurt and loss.Complete.
Relationships: Dina & Ellie (The Last of Us), Dina/Ellie (The Last of Us), Ellie & Joel (The Last of Us)
Series: ...For the Rest of Mine [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1848130
Comments: 636
Kudos: 1047





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A decision made.
> 
> A home lost.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the first time I've EVER written anything like this, but like a lot of people, I was shaken deep, deep down by this game. I've loved reading some of the other fics on here (Absolution, Like a Moth to the Flame, The Great Divide, I Was Born to Endure, to name a few but certainly not an exhaustive list), and I just needed to put some of my own thoughts down too. Hope you all enjoy.
> 
> This may or may not end up being a one shot. I've already written more, and I'd like to switch perspectives, see how Ellie is doing, how Tommy is doing, but we'll see how it goes.

Even with the chill in the thin air and the snow coating the ground, the meeting room of the church was sweltering. Get enough bodies dancing in one place and you’re sure to raise the temperature. 

She’d been sweating practically since she’d walked in the door. Her heart pounding, her eyes clear. 

Tonight, she knew what she was about. 

The town buzzed for weeks whenever there was going to be a dance. Any sort of reprieve from the day to day mundanity that didn’t involve death was always welcome, and the mood in the room had been uptempo the entire evening. The music twangy and loud. Laughter coming easily. Kids playing games off around the edges like “Catch the Clicker”. They didn’t know how dangerous the world was. 

The way things should be. 

Among all these neighbors and friends allowing themselves to be happy, her spirits were high, but her hands were trembling. Shaking. Her nerves betraying her like they never had before. Everyone said she was the confident one. 

“Well… just ‘cause you’ve made up your mind doesn’t mean your body isn’t getting ready to run the fuck out of here if this goes sideways”, she supposed. 

Fuck her nerves. This was happening. 

Her hands keep trembling.

She danced along with the crowd. Waiting, hoping. She politely, even energetically accepted offers to dance with boys with those sly, confident “I’ve got this” smiles. She’d always been the charitable type.

Even when she had been in a relationship all that time, there had been others practically bursting to let her know they were waiting in the wings for her to be single. It seemed tonight they all thought “This is it”. This was their chance. 

None of them knew though. 

Her heart had been spoken for longer than even she had known. 

Tonight wasn’t going to be those boys' nights.

While dancing with one of the Thomas brothers, her breath hitches when she sees the one she’d been waiting for across the room. Aloof. Nursing a tumbler of whiskey. Hair barely cleaned. “Dressed up” in the same clothes worn all throughout the day. The most beautiful thing she’s ever seen.

She knew… she KNEW it was right then or never when that song ended and their eyes met, the music shifting into a slower number for the first time all night. She needs to remember to thank whoever is spinning the records. Good looking out for your girl.

They wrap close around each other on the dance floor. Close enough for people to take notice. Close enough for her not to care. Her skin tingles, coming alive where their bodies meet, even through the mess of her sweaty clothes. 

She’d spent so long denying this, and now with the feel of those hands on her, she can’t for the life of her think of a single goddamn reason why. 

She rushes to get the requisite verbal sparring out of the way. 

“You idiot...”, she thinks to herself, fighting the urge to run her lips against the open span of inviting neck right in front of her, “...we’re not here for that.” 

Not tonight. 

Not after the long months… the YEARS of indecision. 

Of second guessing. 

Of being so close to something so beautiful and incandescent and REAL that all she needed to do was reach out and touch it but never did.

Not tonight.

“I’m just a girl… not a threat”, the most dangerous thing she’s ever encountered mumbles out, without a hint of humor. She can almost taste the sadness dripping off those words.

She pulls away, so that Ellie can see the truth of what she has to say written large across her face, and reaches up to slowly tuck a loose strand of that red hair behind Ellie's ear. 

The shift from lonely but accepted defeat to surprise and awe in Ellie’s eyes. The near reverence Ellie has for her but has never noticed is mirrored in her own eyes… they’re things she doesn’t think she’ll ever forget, in this life or the next. 

“Oh Ellie… “, she breathes, resting her hand on the back of the pale girl's neck, pausing to drink in the experience, to make it last. 

Every note of the song. 

How the stringed up lights fill the room with that certain type of soft ambient glow. 

Every freckle on Ellie’s face. 

Every tiny shift in her expression. 

The green of Ellie’s eyes, the color of the forest. 

Of something wild, trapped, and longing to be free. 

An endless field of tall grass to get lost in forever. 

Everything about Ellie in this moment, she knew then she needed to remember. She knew this was the kind of moment that changes everything.

She exhales the feeling she’s known but never been able to speak.

“...I think they should be terrified of you.” 

Without hesitation or doubt, her lips were on Ellie’s, and the lights, the music, the oppressive, wet heat in the church room and everyone inside it were gone. 

There’s only Ellie’s hair tangled between her fingertips.

Ellie’s arms, tightening around her waist, pulling her closer. 

The warm taste of whiskey on Ellie’s tongue. 

The unexpected softness of Ellie’s lips. 

Ellie's lips.

Oh god, Ellie’s lips.

And finally when they break apart, that smile.

Ellie smiles at her in a way she swore could have shattered her into a thousand pieces, a thousand times over, and each time she’d happily pick up her remains and put herself back together if only it meant she could see Ellie smile like that just one more time.

For a few moments in this world that could be so horribly cruel, the world that had taken her father and her mother and Talia from her, and so much from so many… it was just the two of them. Here together, and for these few moments that was all that mattered.

She knows then, with a certainty she’s never experienced before, that Ellie Williams is going to be the death of her.

Looking up at that damn smile, breathless, her heart in her throat, with their whole lives to come stretched out in front of them, Dina gets ok with that idea real quick.

\----------

A week after Ellie has left, Dina can’t cry herself to sleep any more. 

The tears still come in the dark. The sleep, not as much. 

All she wants to do is sleep.

\----------

A few days after that, she had lost her temper with JJ for the first time since he was born. 

She had him in his sling around her chest and just… just needed a moment to herself. This one moment, just for her.

While doing the laundry, humming lightly to JJ, she had absent mindedly picked up one of Ellie’s worn down flannels, almost thinking to call out to ask if she wanted it washed before she remembered Ellie wasn’t there to answer.

The shirt was a subtle dark green and blue plaid cast in large bars, the size of it slightly too big for Ellie’s frame. She'd had it a long time, as far back as Dina could remember and still picture the exact clothes Ellie was wearing. Still picture exactly what she looked like on any given day.

So, she supposed, pretty long. That redhead had caught her eye young.

She remembered when Ellie had found it that Joel said it made her look "grunge", whatever that meant. It had sounded like both an insult and compliment coming from him. You never could tell with that man. 

There was a fraying hole around one of the elbows, seams coming undone at one of the shoulders. It had been worn roughly, like most of Ellie’s shirts. A button was hanging on for dear life. 

It wasn’t a particular favorite of Dina’s. Her breath caught dry in her throat all the same as she ran her hand over the soft, worn fabric.

Dina brought the button-up close to her face, slowly closed her eyes, and deeply breathed in the lingering scent. 

It smelled like… 

...like the earth out in the woods. 

Like the soap they all shared in the bath, tinged with lavender. 

Like the oil she had watched Ellie rub into the fretboard of her old guitar. 

Like whiskey. 

Like Ellie.

She could swear in that brief second Ellie was still there with them. She was sure she could feel Ellie’s hands wrapping around her waist, tugging at her hips. She could feel Ellie strong against her back, her neck being brushed with the only lips she ever wanted to feel on her ever again, asking her if she wanted it to stop. 

How did she ever tell Ellie to stop? 

She should have never told her to stop. 

She was broken out of the trance by JJ reaching from the sling, grabbing the loose button in his little hand, and giggling as he yanked it from the thread. 

Before Dina even knew what she was doing, she was yelling at him. 

“Damnit, JJ, no! That’s Hers! It’s mommys! It’s Hers!”

Didn’t he understand? Doesn’t he know she’s gone and this fucking shirt is precious? An artifact? How could he ruin one of the few parts of her they have left if she never...? 

Of course, JJ doesn’t understand. How could he? 

Dina doesn’t even understand. 

JJ just wailed loudly in his sling, gripping the button, and almost immediately, Dina was sobbing too, whispering rushed apologies to her son, wrapping him in her arms and in Ellie’s stupid faded flannel shirt, newly short one button. 

“I’m sorry pota… JJ. I’m sorry, my little goober.”

Ellie’s nickname for their son still stuck in her throat. 

“I’m so sorry.”

She doesn’t think she’ll ever forgive herself for it. 

She doesn’t think she’ll ever forgive Ellie for it either. 

That night they both sleep clinging to the shirt.

The next morning Dina sews the button snuggly onto Olly's chest. She doesn't know if JJ even notices, but she has more affection for the stuffed elephant.

\----------

Two weeks pass, and she becomes distinctly aware that Ellie isn’t coming back. Aware enough to admit it to herself. 

After JJ falls asleep that night and she places him in his crib with a kiss, she goes back down stairs in the dark and declares out loud to the quiet house.

“Fuck it, El, I’m getting drunk without you”

She takes Ellie’s half empty bottle of whiskey off the cabinet in the corner where they… where SHE keeps their… HER liquor, taking a moment to glance at the framed picture sitting on it. Tommy had... 

Tommy… 

All her time in Jackson, she’d always liked the gruff but likewise affable man, even with his ridiculous blonde ponytail, but his name tastes bitter to her now, even just to think it. 

Tommy had taken the picture soon after Ellie and Joel had come to Jackson. That day the two brothers surprised Ellie, taking her to the stables to meet her horse, Shimmer. Tommy snapped it right when Shimmer came over to Ellie and Joel for the first time, the moment after Joel had removed his hands from Ellie’s eyes to reveal the big surprise.

Ellie told her she thought they were taking her to clean an outhouse or something because of the smell. When Dina laughed and asked what she had done to deserve that, she just shrugged and mumbled something about stealing things from Tommy. 

The look on Ellie’s face in the picture is pure glee. Child like. Not one Dina thinks she had seen now in years.

She guesses she’ll never see it again.

Ellie really loved that horse.

Shimmer was dead now. 

Joel was dead.

Ellie was…

Dina locks that thought up tight, not even close to ready to examine it, and takes the bottle outside, away from those intrusions on her drinking. 

Sitting heavily on the stairs of the porch, she gazes around the property, seeing nothing that shouldn’t be there, trying to ignore the chill on the wind. 

“Got the remedy for that right here”, she thinks smugly to herself, unscrewing the lid with a flourish no one is around to see. 

The honey colored liquid inside promises that it’ll help her forget, or it’ll least allow her not to think for a fucking minute or two.

Fuck, she’d kill for some weed right now. The thought makes her pour a little of the whiskey out onto dirt. 

“Miss you, Eugene. Hope there’s a vast and varied collection of porn wherever you are.”

She chuckles slightly at the thought of the old man, tips the bottle and her eyebrows with a nod to the sky in a salute, and then raises the rim to her lips. 

As soon as the burn touches her tongue, all she tastes is Ellie. 

Ellie kissing her for the first time in the heat of the church.

Ellie sitting next to her on the couch while she’s pregnant, arm draped around her, casually tracing circles on the exposed skin of her stomach, trailing faint kisses down the side of her face, teasing her that she can’t share the drink in her other hand.

Ellie after dinner, grinning that grin that’s somehow both wolfish and sheepish, taking her hand and dancing with her in the living room while JJ giggles and babbles in his high chair, Ellie singing softly for the three of them.

Ellie leading her up the stairs to their bed, whispering how much she loves her.

Ellie. Ellie. 

Ellie...

Another night of tears and very little sleep. 

Dina doesn’t think she’ll ever be able to taste whiskey without thinking of Ellie.

She thinks back to their first time together, in the middle of a blizzard on a ratty couch in Eugene's Weed and Porn Warehouse (as they had come to call it), only hours before their world was smashed in by a hateful monster with a golf club...

...and she can only hope the same isn’t true of weed. 

The next day Dina moves all of the liquor out of sight into Ellie’s art room. She hadn’t opened the door since Ellie left, and maybe this was her excuse for going in, but she only stays long enough to put the bottles on a shelf and leave. She can’t bear to look at anything else. Ellie is everywhere in there.

Ellie is everywhere in the whole house.

\----------

Time passes by. Days. Weeks. Dina and JJ settle into an Ellie-less life, if Dina can even call it that. She isn’t weaving anymore. No longer fucking around with the insides of that old radio, trying to get it to work. There’s none of the music there used to be. There’s no dancing except when Dina sways with JJ in her arms to get him to sleep. No one calls him “potato” or “spud”. No one holds her and tells her they love her. 

She feel’s Ellie’s absence in her bones. Down in her toes. Whenever she thinks of a pun. When she does the dishes and Ellie doesn’t kiss her cheek on her way out the back door. When JJ laughs and she looks over and Ellie isn’t there to smile with her. 

Jesse’s parents, Robin and Mitchell, come by “just for a visit”, but with bags packed to stay for a couple days. They’re not used to not hearing from the three of them. Dina tries to put on a brave face, but the cracks are evident all over, there’s hardly any use in covering them up. 

It surprises her how happy she is they’ve come, her relief at having company overcoming the usual pangs of guilt that usually accompanies seeing them. She’s always loved them like her own family, but after a month of no one in the house except herself and JJ, she hadn’t realized just how lonely she’d become. Not just missing Ellie, but missing talking to anyone. 

Dina hadn’t been alone for this long since Talia had been…since she had died, before Dina had found her way to Jackson. 

Not that JJ was bad company, the kid was just fucking hard to hold a conversation with. Talked over her all the time, barely paid any attention to what she had to say. 

His counterpoints were, if she was honest, rarely apropos to the topic at hand.

And god, he was just like his father. Absolutely OBSESSED with boobs. 

Men.

If Robin and Mitchell were made uncomfortable by how long her hugs lingered, they didn't make it known. 

They try to convince her to come back to Jackson, for her and JJ’s safety. Hell, they thought it had been unsafe even when there were two “adults” around. Mitchell walked the fence, looking for holes or weak spots any time they visited, as though Ellie hadn’t done that each and every day.

Robin is especially adamant they move back to town. She says she’ll sleep better knowing they’re close and safe. Dina knows that Robin looks at JJ and sees Jesse. She can’t even imagine the kind of pain that brings her… Mother’s should never have to bury their children, no matter how often it happened these days.

They’re probably right. She should move back.

Dina won’t hear of it. 

She had always wanted a farm. Out away from everyone. A beautiful, peaceful place to call her own. 

It’s only lonely if you’re… alone.

Ellie has taken so much already. She can’t take this too.

The wind is heavy coming down off the mountains the night Jesse’s parents leave, and it feels like it shakes the whole house. After midnight an especially heavy gust takes one of the shutters off of the front room window.

Ellie had talked about needing to nail that one back down after the last storm.

The next morning, Dina goes out front with the hammer and nails, and the step ladder they… she keeps in the barn. 

She stares at the fallen shudder for what feels like a long while, resolutely deciding to put it back up. 

The minutes pass as she decides this about ten more times, but still she just stands there, hammer loose in her hand, nails still in her pocket. 

She walks back inside, and just leaves it there. 

Really… what’s the point? 

\----------

The windows are open. Maybe she wouldn’t have heard it if they were shut, but the sound spills wildly into the bedroom like a siren and pulls her mercilessly from sleep. 

Distant screaming in the woods outside the perimeter fence.

It sounds like a woman. 

It sounds like…

Dina’s hand is on the pistol inside the nightstand in an instant, and she’s down the stairs just as quickly. 

By the time she reaches the door, the sound is louder, closer. 

She doesn’t stop for her boots. She doesn’t stop for anything.

Dina knows she’s sprinting across the field, but she feels like she’s never moved slower in her entire life. 

She can get there.

She will get there.

It seems like she’s been running for miles when she reaches the broken down tractor, and the cries have reached the front gate. 

The pained chorus is joined by a new sound, one that never fails to send chills up Dina’s spine, no matter how many times she’s heard it.

That distinctive clicking. 

That horrible screeching. 

She knows she doesn’t have a lot of time.

The voice rings out true, desperate and terrified.

“PLEASE DINA!”

Oh god, it’s her. 

It’s Ellie. 

She’d know her voice anywhere. 

She’d know it in her dreams. 

She’ll know it long after she’s dead.

Ellie was pulling frantically at the gate when Dina reached her. Wounds covered her body, deep gashes and bite marks everywhere. The dark rivers of blood that spill from them making her skin look slick and black in the moonlight. Dina barely recognizes her.

Ellie tries to climb the fence but she slips, the blood wetting her hands from so many punctures allowing her no purchase.

“Dina! Please! I’m so fucking scared!” Ellie cries to her. She’s screaming, but her voice is small and more afraid than Dina thought she would ever hear again. 

It reminds her of Seattle. 

Of after Nora. 

Not far off, Dina could hear the Clicker rushing to reach its prey, sweeping the brush and branches aside in it’s blind, clawing hunger to take her heart away from her again.

“Just hold on! HOLD ON!”, Dina begs, their eyes meeting in the dark, the fear and panic and loss mirrored in the green and brown.

Dina struggles against the lock bar, but it won’t budge. The bolt stays resolutely in the latch, like it had been welded there. As though it were a single piece made to keep them apart. 

Ellie whimpers, turning her head to look at the infected creature, emerging out of the yawning darkness of the trail. 

She looks back at Dina with tears streaming from her eyes, and stops fighting.

Dina’s eyes go wide, “No! NO!”

Ellie’s hands drop from the fence. 

Done. Defeated. 

She just stares at Dina with all the love and regret that’s left in the entire world.

“NO! FUCK YOU! You don’t get to do that!”, Dina sobs, ferally tearing at the barrier between them, slicing her hands open on the metal, beating them raw against the rough wood. 

“COME ON, MOTHERFUCKER! OPEN! ELLIE!”

Kicking the latch with her bare feet. Slamming against it with her entire body until she’s numb to the pain. 

It’s going to break. 

It has to break.

“ELLIE, PLEASE DON’T DO THIS! GOD DAMNIT, ELLIE, PLEASE DON’T STOP!”

She can feel the gate starting to snap, the latch buckling under the pressure of her rage. 

Her will. 

Her love.

She’s going to save this stupid girl if it kills her. 

She’ll never let her go again.

Nothing in this whole goddamn world can keep her from Ellie. 

Ellie never takes her eyes off her, just extends her bloodied hand through the wire mesh, reaching for Dinas tear soaked face.

“Dina...”, Ellie’s pale fingers just barely ghost along Dinas wet cheek, setting her skin ablaze before the Clicker is on her.

Dina raises her arms to level her forgotten gun at the monstrosity's head, but the weapon is nowhere to be found.

By the time she can even register what’s happened, the thing is pulling Ellie away from her, dragging the love of her life into the seeping black void of the woods, it’s grinning teeth sinking deep into Ellie’s neck.

It’s face isn’t covered in fungal plates. 

It looks just like Abby.

Dina screams but no sound escapes her lungs. 

When she wakes up, the woods are silent. JJ is sound asleep beside her, gripping Olly and snuggled into Ellie's flannel shirt. The windows are closed. It’s still dark out.

It should be peaceful. 

But Ellie isn’t here.

She isn’t here. 

\----------

The next morning, Dina takes JJ and rides to Jackson to tell Jesse’s parents she’s moving back to town. She just… she can’t stay in that house any longer.

They insist she move in with them. They have plenty of space, even a separate room to be a nursery for JJ, whenever Dina is ready for that. It’ll be for the best. They’ll be a family.

Dina doesn’t argue.

Mitchell comes back to the farm house with her, bringing a cart and some other helpful hands. Boys from around town who seem very eager to pitch in. Everyone loves Robin and Mitchell. Everyone loves Dina. Everyone tries to comfort her. 

Dina doesn’t say much about it.

They pack everything but the heavy furniture. No place to put it in Robin and Mitchells house anyways. Some of the boys wrangle the sheep. Dina tells them not to worry about the crops out back. Just let them stay where they are. She wasn’t a great farmer. Nothing grew well here.

She can't bear to bring anything of Ellie’s with her. Not the paintings Ellie did that brought such vibrant color to their home. Not Joel’s western statues. Not her guitar. Not the music.

Nothing.

Everyone waits outside while she brings the last of it up to Ellie’s room. Everything about it stings just a little more. The comic book collection. The trading cards. The posters of bands they’d never see. The books about space and dinosaurs and time machines. The silly toys. Every bit just a needle with it’s own particular barb digging a little deeper into the soft parts of Dina’s heart.

While shoving the boxes under the desk on the paint stained floor, she does find herself idly picking through the records, stopping on the familiar cover she’s pretending not to be looking for, and takes the vinyl out. She stares blankly at it for a long time before picking up the old wind up player, placing it on top of the desk, and deciding to listen one last time. 

The first familiar strum of the guitar fills the small room.... the picking of the banjo… the mournful hum of the cello. How many times had Ellie and Dina held each other listening to this song since the first time at the dance in that crowded room, a lifetime ago? Before she even realizes it the hot sting of tears hits her and Dinas eyes are running over in an instant. 

She can’t close the cover on the player fast enough. She can’t be in there another second. 

Slamming the door of Ellie’s room, and rushing out of the house, she only stops to weakly say to Mitchell:

“I’m ready”. 

He’s kind enough to not ask about the commotion or the fresh tears in her eyes. 

Dina doesn’t look back as the farm house disappears behind the trees.

She’s never coming back here again.

\----------

Two days later, she’s back. 

She left JJ with Robin, saying she’s just going for a ride around the walls of the town. 

She doubts Robin believes her, but if the older woman suspects it, she doesn’t say anything. Just smiles at the girl a bit sadly, picks up her grandson, and goes about her business.

It takes a good part of the day to get back there. It really shouldn’t have taken that long, but she can’t find the will to hurry herself down the trail. It’ll be long past sundown by the time she gets back to Jackson going at this rate.

The key lingers in Dina's hand, hovering in front of the door for what feels like an eternity before she finds her courage and walks into that place that had once made her so happy. The place where she thought they had been happy.

Walking softly back into Ellie’s room, she picks up the things she came for. 

The framed picture of Ellie and Joel and Shimmer. 

The embroidered “E” she had done to match the “D” and “J”. 

The painting Ellie had done of JJ when he was just a couple months old. 

The portrait Ellie had made her sit still for for hours, pretending to start over so many times. 

Under the tipped over photo of herself that Ellie kept on her desk, she finds the ripped away portion of the photo that used to include her, Jesse, and Ellie. She had removed Ellie from the equation in a fit of spite at the girl some weeks ago, leaving the fragment in the room to collect dust with the rest of the memories. She sticks the smiling face in the breast pocket of her shirt, next to her heart.

The last thing is the black and white portrait Ellie had done of Dina and JJ in simple brush strokes from the wall. She had done this one from memory. The care in it is so evident. The love. Even if it wasn’t enough.

She trace’s her fingers over the signature, her fingers gliding slowly over each letter.

“You fucking idiot”, she says into the empty room, though she doesn’t know if she’s saying it to Ellie or herself. 

She rolls it up and takes it too, closing the door quietly behind her.

She goes down the short hall into the bedroom and sets the neatly folded linens she brought onto the corner of the bed she and Ellie had shared, placing a kiss on top of them. 

Her eyes fixed on Ellie’s side of that lonesome bed, she whispers a prayer before she leaves the room.

It’s the first time she’s prayed since the morning Ellie left. 

The prayer is the same.

When she leaves she only closes the screen door behind her. It doesn’t have a lock.

She doesn’t come back after that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This whole piece was really inspired by playing through the game a second time, and trying to really notice what was there at The Farm when they were happy, and what was gone when Ellie returns. Dina took more of Ellie's with her than I originally noticed.
> 
> Find me on [Tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/whiskeytango8686) . Send a writing prompt for this series if you'd like, maybe I'll run with it.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 9 candles
> 
> Drinks with a "friend"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just going to keep going I think!

All of the lamps in the farm house are blown out, the only light inside coming off of the long flickering candle in Dina’s hand. 

“ _Barukh Atta_... _Ado-nai_ ”, she sings softly, a little unsure, giving Ellie a quick glance. It’s usually Ellie doing the singing, and it’s never so… religious.

The pair sit next to each other on their living room couch under an old heavy wool blanket. Dina isn’t sure where it came from, she doesn’t recognize it from Ellie’s old house. If she had to guess, she’d say it was Joel’s. 

The cold has already started to creep in, but despite Ellie’s protests, there’s no fire burning in the fireplace. Dina insisted that the only light come from the candle during this part. Their large silver menorah was placed prominently in front of them on the coffee table. The one that Dina has had with her ever since she was a child, a keepsake from her sister, her family. Ellie was shocked to learn it wasn’t something Dina had found in Jackson. It wasn’t the type of thing that traveled easy. Had she really carried this all the way from New Mexico? Dina had just shrugged at the question and said you don’t leave some things behind.

“You are making this shit up”, Ellie teases her.

Dina scrunches her face and carries on, “ _Elo-heinu_ … shut up, I’m trying to concentrate… _melech_... _sal_... _mon_?”

She winces a little at that one. Talia would kill her if she were around to hear that.

Ellie tries to hold in a throaty laugh, “Is that like the Chanukah Fish? Could we maybe have Chanukah Rabbit instead, because we just had fish yest-”

Dina backhands Ellie’s arm lightly, which just makes her laugh harder at her own joke. Classic Ellie. No one finds her funnier than she finds herself. 

Well, maybe one person does.

She tries not to show her smile, and closes her eyes to try to remember the words. 

“ _Ashers kids_... and...uh... _mmm-mmm-mmmmmm-mmm-mmm_ …”

She gives Ellie a warning look before she can offer any more quips, and rushes a bit through the last part.

“ _Vetzevanu_... _leeks_... and... _It’s fu-cking-Cha-nu-kah_.”, Dina looks around awkwardly, “...the end? I can’t remember the rest, but I know there’s more. Fuck. Talia...”, she looks up out of the window dramatically, “...forgive your sister, she lives amongst the gentiles.”

She gestures broadly to Ellie, while also kind of looking for reassurance that it wasn’t complete trash.

Ellie can’t hold it in any longer and bursts out laughing, “Babe, I’m not Jewish, but I’m pretty sure 'it’s fucking Chanukah' is not how any song ends. Are you sure _you’re_ Jewish?”

Dina smirks and tries to give her a withering glare, “Keep it up, goy. See how this turns out for you”

Ellie doesn’t relent in her teasing, “No, no. It’s totally fine. Maybe you’re just… Jew-ish?”

Dina mocks an aghast face, clutching her invisible pearls, “How DARE you!? You should know, my god is a vengeful god. Consider yourself lucky he hasn’t smote your ass where you sit already, with all the blaspheming you do.”

Ellie makes a big show of biting her lip and giving Dina the up and the down, “Mmm, I love it when you talk dirty to me.”

She can’t roll her eyes far enough, but Dina also can’t deny the effect watching Ellie bite her lip has on her. She can feel the heat rise in her cheeks, and the tingle in her fingers. Her stomach flips so hard it hurts. Kind of really hurts. Even in this state, her body will always respond to Ellie.

Her tormenter leans in and playfully insists, “Alright mistress, what’s next?”

Her tongue instinctively wets her lips, like muscle memory taking over at Ellie’s proximity. Ellie’s leaf green eyes glance down to catch the movement.

“Um… “, Dina clears her throat. How does Ellie still make her heart jump? 

“...you take my hand... “

Ellie does as she’s told, wrapping her pale and rough, calloused hand around Dina’s, the one gripping the lit candle, but her eyes, those dangerous eyes, never leave Dina’s face. 

Against her will, Dina’s voice comes out breathy and poorly-composed “...and then we… light that other candle together…”

Ellie just gazes at her and nods, something deep and reverential playing across her face, and whispers, “... Okay.” 

Together, their hands move to the menorah, and light the single candle resting in one of the holders. It would have been really smooth if it worked the first time with neither of them willing to look away from each other, but it takes a couple attempts.

How the hell was this so intimate? This used to just be something she forced herself to do to remember where her family had come from, and now in the midst of this tradition she couldn’t think of anything except her and Ellie tangled up together on the floor.

“And uh…”, she has to clear her throat again, her words low and god damnit, if she’s honest, a little desperate, “... then we do this again for seven mo-”

Ellie’s lips are urgent on hers before she can finish, her open hand coming around and intertwining it’s fingers into Dina’s loose hair, pulling them closer together. 

Dina melts under Ellie’s ministrations, a soft hum escaping her lungs directly into Ellie’s working mouth. 

Ellie stops for a moment to lift the candle out of Dina’s hand and place it back onto the Menorah. Dina grabs Ellie by the shirt and pulls her back on top of her, hungry for Ellie. Starved for her.

“Uh, Di…”, Ellie laughs a little while Dina nibbles at her collar bone, her ear, her neck, but actually does sound a little alarmed, “... Di.”

Dina leans back, her voice husky, an eyebrow raised, her body aching for Ellie… aching for… actually, just… aching, “Ellie, I will get to there, but don’t you rush me.”

Those usually pale cheeks go red, but Ellie continues, trying to play it cool, “I know you find me devastating, but not usually... this… devastating?” 

“What do you-”, Dina notices for the first time how wet the couch is underneath her. The realization hits her like a ton of bricks. The intermittent pains she’d be having for the last hour, slowly getting worse and more immediate. Now this.

“Oh, fuck”

Not out here. Not all the way out here. This late? There’s no way they could get to Jackson.

“Oh fuck, Ellie, I’m going into labor”, the panic in her voice is barely restrained. 

Ellie’s eyes shoot wide, but if she’s afraid at this fucking drastic change in the evenings activities, she doesn’t allow any other sign of it to reach her face. She grabs Dina’s hand, and quickly stands.

“Alright, babe, alright. It’s going to be ok. We’re going to do just what we’ve been practicing”, she says calmly but firmly. 

Dina is hyperventilating on the couch. 

“No-no-no-no… we were supposed to be in Jackson, Ellie! We-we-were going to be at the medical clinic with Robin and a fucking doctor and-”

Ellie is down on her knees in front of her before she can finish, cradling her face in her hands, “I know, sweetheart, I know, but that isn’t what’s going to happen now. We always knew this was a possibility. I’m here with you. Everything is going to be alright.” 

Her lip turns up with a devilish little smirk, and she tries to catch Dina’s eye away from the front door. 

“We watched that mama sheep giving birth a few months back, and she did great. How much worse can this possibly be?” 

If looks could kill, Ellie would be struck dead on that floor.

“That... was one the most horrific things I’ve ever seen in my life, and you know I’ve seen some shit, Ellie. If that’s what's going to happen to my body, y-you can do it. You have the baby”. There’s a fairly honest plea in her tone. 

Ellie smiles and peppers Dinas face with kisses. “I’d have had to hook up with someone else to make that happen, and sorry… I’m a one woman gal.”

Dina smiles back weakly, but her face can’t keep up the look. The fear takes back over, and tears are starting to run one by one down her cheeks. 

“Ellie… I’m really scared”

“Oh Di, I know, but the pai-”

Dina swallows roughly, “No, not of pain, Well, I mean, fucking y-yeah, the fucking pain...”, they both knew there was nothing in the house that was safe for her to take now. They thought they had another week to get to Jackson. 

“...but…”

Ellie just waits for her, projecting patience and calm. 

Dina exhales slowly, trying to match Ellie’s uncharacteristic demeanor. Failing. “I’m fucking scared… something is going to happen to me, and… and you’ll be-”

Ellie presses her lips to Dina’s, again not letting Dina finish her sentence. Dina just loves when she does that.

“That’s not going to happen...”, Ellie says resolutely when they break apart. 

She stands up straight, tall and ready, and offers her hand to Dina again. 

“... and I’m not going anywhere either...”

Dina takes her hand.

“...ever.”

\----------

“I want to be put back on patrols.”

Maria nearly jumps out of her skin at the voice coming from one of her porch chairs, the person sitting in it unnoticed as she was closing her front door to go make the early rounds.

“Jesus FUCKIN’ christ, Dina, you almost gave me a heart attack.”, her accent coming out strong in her shock, the older woman has to hold one hand against the door and one against her chest to steady herself and regain her composure, eyes shooting daggers at her nonchalant visitor. 

“You takin’ up a Michael fuckin’ Myers routine? Scarin’ people like that?”, she starts to head down the steps, hoping to avoid this conversation.

Dina just shrugs, getting up from the chair and following Maria across the lawn. “I’m ‘sposed to know who that is?”

“What, you never seen ‘Halloween’?”

Dina just shrugs again, looking absent minded and distant as she catches up, “I’m not a fan of halloween…”

They walk together in silence for a bit, before Dina presses the subject.

“Maria… I’ve been doing odd jobs around here for months. Helping out at the clinic… the garden. Trying to fix peoples electronic stuff.”

Maria scoffs, “Yeah, I heard about that. You gotta cut that out. It’s not like we got an endless supply of TV’s you know?”

Dina chuckles a bit, kicking a rock into the curb, “Well, I thought Eugene taught me everything he knew… I guess I’ve still got a ways to go.”

Maria spared a glance at her. She’d known this girl, god, since she was 12 years old. The better part of 10 years now. They’d never been close, not really, not like Maria had been… or at least had wanted to be with Ellie, but you don’t spend that long in a town like this without learning a thing or twenty about someone. About what makes them tick. About what hurts them. And hell, it was no secret to anyone who had seen them together that she loved Ellie something fierce, just like it was no secret that Ellie was gone.

Was she just away, or was she laid out on the cold ground, dead or dying somewhere? Did it even make much of a difference which it was if she was never coming back? The damned not knowing. Maria knew that feeling all too well. She could recognize it written plain all over Dina's face from the moment she stepped back into Jackson some months ago until the moment she showed up on her porch this morning.

Still got a ways to go, indeed. 

It was like the girl's light had been flipped off and now… now she was on auto pilot, just waiting for a boulder to drift into. 

Maria wasn’t feeling real apt to place one in the middle of the road for her.

She’d already helped too many loved ones crash head long into something she could have stopped.

“I just… I need to get back out on patrol. I was good at it, Maria. I was useful.”

Maria huffed out a heavy breath, taking a moment to wave hello to a few other people as they passed by, weighing her options.

“What about your shoulder?”, she tried, already knowing this one wasn’t going anywhere.

Dina rolls her eyes, her exasperation at this expected line clear, “My shoulder is fine.”

“That was a nasty wound you took. Can you even shoot a rif-”

“My shoulder is fine.”

Maria gave up on that one.

It was worth a shot.

They continued walking. Maria hoping someone would stop them to talk, but each and every one of these usually talkative bastards failed her this morning. 

Useless, all of them. Why are the streets so empty? People should be going about their business by now. Had Dina orchestrated this or something? Had she made threats? Maria made a mental note to check into the whereabouts of these turncoats later.

Maybe she could just walk her up to Gustavo, distract Dina like a bird with his fancy pluckin’, and make a break for it. 

Not a great option. Dina could probably run her down. She wasn't so young anymore, and Dina had that kinda look in her eye.

She was never going to make it all the way to her office by the wall, not if Dina had anything to say about it. Maria resigns herself to actually having to talk about this. 

“Look... “, she stops walking in the middle of the street, catching Dina a little by surprise.

“I need to know, right here and now, that if, and this is a big fuckin’ ‘IF’... “

Dina seems to perk up a little, clearly feeling like this was turning her way.

“Calm your waters, kid”, Maria thinks. “You’re not gonna like where this boat is rowin.”

“... IF I were to put you back out there”, she continues, a little softer “that you’re not just lookin’ for a way out.”

Dina rolls her eyes again, losing patience, “Jackson isn’t a prison, Maria. I can pick up JJ and leave anytime I want. Plenty of people have. I have. Twice. I’m trying to help!”

Maria raises her eyebrows, giving her a stern, honest look. “Dina, I’m not talkin’ about a way outta fuckin’ Jackson.”

It takes a moment before Dina registered exactly what Maria meant, but when she does, she visibly struggles for what to say. 

“I… why would I ever… I have JJ.”

Another good reason not to put her out there.

Maria soldiers on, hoping to get through to her, like she had failed to do with Ellie... and Tommy, “I’ve seen it before. Plenty of times. Plenty of good people.” 

She puts her hand on Dinas shoulder, trying to be reassuring. “People just get… They get tired. Feel like they’ve seen too much. Had too much happ-”

Dina steps back, letting Marias hand slide away from her. “That’s... “, she swallows, trying to balance her herself. Maria can tell she’s biting her tongue. She straightens, feigning strength.

“...That’s not what this is. I would never do that to JJ.” 

She looks Maria straight in the eye, the same look Dina gave when she told her she was going with Ellie to Seattle. 

“You going to put me back out there or not?”

Maria can only sigh and avert her eyes. Dina has clearly already made up her mind. 

And she was right, Jackson wasn’t a prison. Maybe it was better to let her do this under watchful eyes than to have her leave, a ball of unsettled energy, spoiling for something she wasn’t ready for. 

Maria felt like either way it was going to weigh pretty damn heavy on her conscience.

She meets Dina’s eyes again. “Let me think about it.”

Dina nods and turns to head back in the direction they came, stopping after a few feet.

She turns her head a little but doesn’t actually look back, saying in a far less confident voice than she had just been using, 

“I don’t ever want to be assigned to the Creek Trails.”

“Dina, I’ve haven’t even said yes y-”

But she’s already walking away.

\----------

The next day, Maria stops by the garden while Dina is knee deep in weeding to let her know she's being re-assigned to a three person patrol. She's starting in a couple of days, as soon as they can get someone to replace her shifts there and at the clinic. Maria doesn't stick around long after to chat.

Since when did they start doing triples? Maybe after what happened with Joel and Tommy. 

Or maybe Maria just doesn’t trust her.

Either way, things felt a little bit lighter than they have in a while. It's a win. Dina would have been happy even just to be put on the group patrol again with the new recruits. She wouldn’t have to putz around the clinic like one of the girls that she and… that she used to laugh about. Wouldn’t have to work in the garden, which just reminded her of the farm, and how she lacked the talent for growing things.

She wouldn’t have to just wander around town with JJ, and have people feeling sorry for her. 

Or sit with JJ in Robin and Mitchell’s house, her house she guessed, and have different, more familiar people feeling sorry for her.

Wouldn’t have to see fucking Cat. Passing her on the street, giving her a sad smile, like she “knows”. 

The fuck does she know.

She can do something besides sit and try to learn to play that stupid...

She can get out again. On a horse. Out in the open air, in the mountains, and out in the… the woods. 

She bottles the feelings thoughts of the woods bring up, along with the free association her mind is threatening. 

Outside the walls, she'll find some solace, some peace. She's sure of it.

She rips another weed out with a grunt. It comes out pretty easily, barely satisfying.

Maybe she just wants to shoot something. There's a real healthy thought.

Wiping the sweat off her forehead, she raises a halfhearted wave to the guys who walk by and offer their smiling "Hey Dina"s. She recognizes one of them, Antony Thomas. One of Jesse's old friends. He was always nice to her. He should keep walking. She's got nothing to offer.

She remembers she had danced with him right before...

Nope. Not right now. Not in the middle of the day. That was for the night time, when she was alone and could let it out. Just focus on patrols again.

This is good. This is a good thing.

\----------

“This is bad”, Robin chides, shaking her head when Dina tells her the good news at dinner.

“Pardon me?”, Dina says, struggling to get a spoonful of finely chopped up vegetables into JJ’s mouth. He’s taken a big shine to knocking spoons away. Dina’s clothes love it.

They just love it.

Robin just keeps shaking her head, “I just don’t understand why you would want to be doing that again. I thought things were going well at the clinic?”

The spoon makes contact inside JJ’s mouth, at least one success for the evening.

“The clinic is…”, she wants to say “boring” and “for old women and girls just looking to get married”, but as Robin works at the clinic, she thinks better of it.

“The clinic just isn’t for me.”

Mitchell takes a bite of his chicken, not really looking up from the book he seems pretty engrossed by, “ _hmph_ ”

Neither woman pays him much mind.

“Surely there’s something you can do around town that’s less… less…” 

“Exciting?”

Robin huffs, “Dangerous, sweetheart.”

Jesse. It always comes back to Jesse.

Not that Dina can blame Robin. It wasn't like Jesse had died out on a patrol, but maybe... maybe if he hadn't been the type to go on patrols in the first place?

Maybe if he had joined his father in the woodshop. Like that would have ever happened. Jesse always complained to Dina about how much he hated getting all that sawdust in his hair. He cared more about his hair than Dina cared about hers. God, she missed him. 

Robin must think about what could have been all the time. Losing her only son had left an indelible mark on the woman. It would be crazy of Dina to not consider that she’s scared of losing her surrogate daughter as well.

“It’ll be alright”, JJ was winning the fight against the spoon, and Dina was worried her frustration was becoming a little too evident. She was feeling cooped up again.

“Nothing has happened to anyone on a patrol in over a year.” 

She didn’t have to say which night she meant, everyone knew.

Robin still seemed pretty unconvinced.

“... plus, I’m on a new type. Triple patrol. 50% more eyes lookin- JJ!” 

The infant had flung his arms up, knocking a full spoon from her hands, sending pureed food everywhere. 

Mitchell doesn’t seem to take much notice. 

Robin is on her feet immediately, napkins appearing in her hands as if from nowhere. She goes straight over to JJ and starts cleaning him, giving Dina a warm smile. 

The woman really is a saint.

“Oh dear little Turnip, look what a mess we’ve made”

Dina starts to say it used to be “Potato” but the words get caught somewhere deep inside her, refusing to be let out. 

“I…” She needs some air. The walls of this house suddenly got about 10 feet closer than they were a second ago.

“... can you?”

Robin just gives her that same warm smile, picking JJ up out of his high chair, “Of course, you go on, sweetheart.”

Dina half smiles back, and gets up. 

She gives Mitchell a quick kiss on top of his head on the way out, 

“Thanks for speaking up, pop”

“Yep”

\----------

There weren’t a ton of movies to watch in Jackson, but Dina had seen enough to know that walking the streets alone at night was horribly cliche of her. 

“If only it were raining”, she mused, “that’d strike the right mood.”

So she ended up at the Tipsy Bison. 

Hey, even she was disappointed in herself.

She needed a drink though. Robin and Mitchell didn’t keep any liquor in their home (a constant source of frustration for her and Jesse so long ago), and despite how many times they told her to “think of it as just as much her own house”, she’d have felt guilty bringing a bottle in. 

So, here she was.

At the Tipsy Fucking Bison.

Thankfully, Seth, that asshole, wasn’t on bar duty tonight. Just some other scruffy older guy Dina had never met before. She supposed there were probably a lot of people around town she hadn’t met, in her time away. New people streamed into Jackson all the time. It was surprising how far news could reach of a peaceful town in a violent world. There had been people from all over the country coming in these days.

When this new guy, or maybe she was the new girl now, asked what she wanted, she told him it didn’t matter as long as it was something clear.

She thinks she ended up with rum. She’s never liked rum. 

Oh well, down the hatch.

She orders another.

“Hey, uh… do you have any apples?”

The scruffy guy looks at her like she asked him for a fucking airplane, “Apples?”

“Yeah, it’s a thing toda… nevermind”

“Oh my god, is that Dina?”

She looks down the crowded room to the source of the summons, who is making their way over to where she’s sitting, and quickly looks back to her drink.

“Are you fucking kidding me…” she groans before downing that one too.

Cat sits herself down sideways on the barstool next to Dina, a mug of beer in her hand. She's got that same stupid smile on her face she always has. Why is Dina the only one who seems to notice how obnoxious it is? Cat is motioning for the bartender before Dina can tell her that seat is taken by literally anyone but her. She'd almost rather talk to Seth, or hell, even Tommy. At least she could just yell at him. Maybe even hit him. She doesn't think people would take kindly to her punching Cat. 

“Two more of whatever this one here is drowning in, and just put them on mine, Chuck.”, she says with a wink, either to the man or to Dina. Dina couldn’t care less.

“I don’t need you to buy my drink.” Dina hasn’t turned to look at her yet. Maybe Cat will go away if she just doesn't move.

“Well, I’d heard you quit the clinic, so… sounds like you do need someone to be paying for your drinks, brown eyes. Shit here ain’t free.” She wraps her free arm around Dina and pulls her close in what feels like a mockery of a hug. Damnit, why does she have to smell so good? Dina is reminded of one of those flowers she read about once that smells nice and then poisons you.

That gets Dina to turn to her. “Look, I… where did you… I joined the patrols again. I didn’t just quit working.”

“Oh, alright, alright. Didn’t mean to touch a nerve.” Cat lets her go and takes a long sip of her beer, some incredibly light color, the kind you drink all night before it hits you.

“The patrols, huh?” She clicks her tongue, “woulda thought you’d seen enough action for a lifetime.”

There’s not a lot to say to that, much less a desire to explain herself to Cat. “Well… guess I needed a little bit more”. 

Cat just smiles, sets her beer down and picks up the freshly poured glasses of rum, extending one towards Dina.

Dina doesn’t move to take it until after Cat nudges her hand with it a couple times.

“Come on, beautiful. If you can’t share a drink with me, who can you share a drink with?”

Dina turns away, and sips on the clear liquid, the effects of the other two back to back starting to catch up to her. 

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Cat just laughs as though Dina had said something soooooooooo funny and downs the rum in one go, twisting her face into a disgusted expression, like it had bitten her on the way down. 

“Alright, man. Play it that way if you want.”

Dina isn’t stupid. She knows what Cat wants from this. 

She wants Dina to pretend they’re part of the same imagined group. Some “Victims of the Ellie Williams Heartbreak Club". 

She wants to gloat. Like she had been right all along.

Dina just wants to scream at her. To smash the glass in her hand. To do something Ellie would have done.

They aren’t the same. 

Cat had a crush that went on longer than it should have.

Dina had...

She finishes the rest of the rum and stands.

“Thanks for the drink”, she mumbles as she makes her way out, saying to the protesting barkeep, “She’s got me.”

“Awww, was it something I said?” Cat yells after her playfully, before going back to talking to Chaz or whoever the fuck.

\----------

Dina doesn’t end up avoiding the cliche after all.

According to the clock on the wall in the front landing, it’s near midnight when she walks into the house. All of the lights are turned out except in the dining room. A note is placed on the table, next to a plate of sliced apples that look like they turned brown a while ago. The note is propped on a tiny jar of honey. Dina can't even imagine what Robin must of had to trade to get these. She didn't deserve these people.

_"Put JJ to bed around 8,_

_such a little angel._

_We're so lucky to have_

_you both here._

_Love, R &M"_

She had walked the streets for hours. She’s happy no one stayed up for her. 

That doesn’t help how guilty she feels that she just left them with JJ all night. She knows she’s been doing that more often lately. They never seem to mind. Neither does she.

That was the problem. 

She takes the plate of apples and the honey back into the kitchen and puts them away, not being able to bring herself to even taste them. She'll try them tomorrow, she figures. She pours herself a few glasses of water from one of the pitchers in the refrigerator, gulping them down. Her throat had been raw since she left the bar. She didn’t think anyone heard her crying. She had become quite the expert at clandestinely breaking down. No one wanted to see a weeping single mother haunting the streets at night. That’s the kind of shit that starts ghost stories. 

She pours another glass. She’s going to have to refill the tank in the morning. 

She makes it up the stairs as silently as she can, and slips into JJ’s nursery. He’s fast asleep. It's amazing how well the kid sleeps. The book on babies that Dina had read made it sound like he'd be keeping her up all hours of the night. Not that she wasn't sometimes anyways, but it wasn't because of him. JJ just shifts a little in his crib, making little humming and gurgly noises every once in a while. He’s holding Olly by the button, which almost starts Dina crying all over again. 

She knows even though he can’t say it, even if he doesn’t know what it is he’s missing anymore, he still misses Her. 

All she can do is caress his forehead, smoothing his thick black hair, and kiss him gently. 

He’ll forget someday, if she lets him. Wouldn’t that be the kinder thing to do for her son?

She sits in the chair in his room for a while longer, just watching him sleep.

Once in her room, she slowly thumbs over the strings of the guitar resting against the door frame. She'd bartered with a trader for it when she'd first got back to town, swapping it for a handful of the sheep. At the kids school that doubled as a makeshift library, she'd found a yellow book with a dvd in it titled "Guitar for Dummies", and she'd been picking her way through it ever since. She couldn't tell if the guitar itself was any good or not. It certainly wasn't as beautiful as the old one locked away in a case back at the farm.

The tips of her fingers are sore just looking at the thing, but she still considers picking it up and running some practice chords anyways before thinking better of it, not wanting to risk waking anyone. Maybe in the morning. She... she had always liked playing in the mornings.

Let JJ forget... what a joke. Her treacherous heart won't let her forget for even a second. It constantly was trying to form new connections.

She sits on the bed, running her hand slowly over the familiar green and blue flannel shirt that’s always waiting there for her, feeling calm for the first time since she left in the morning. Her eyes move around the room in the dark. Over the portraits on her walls, the photographs sitting on her desk, eventually falling on the menorah sitting on one of the shelves. The hamsa hanging next to it.

Pulling out the torn strip of the photograph she always keeps in her shirt pocket, she gazes down at the smiling face captured in it, and whispers,

“Shana tova, neshama sheli.”

She seals it with a kiss, and lays her head down to start another year.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The opening scene is inspired by not only the menorah in the hutch in Ellie and Dina's house, but also the first time my wife and I lit a menorah together. She was terrible at remembering the words to the customary song, and I felt like Dina would be too. When her and Ellie were in the synagogue in the game it had seemed, to me at least, like Talia was the religious one.
> 
> I set the end of this chapter on Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. The language she sings in at the beginning and uses briefly at the end is transliterated Hebrew.
> 
> Find me on [Tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/whiskeytango8686) . Send a writing prompt for this series if you'd like, maybe I'll run with it.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Music interrupted
> 
> Life is... easier?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If anyone was curious and didn't know, the title of this work comes from a 2006 album by Crooked Still, the same album that has the both songs that are playing during The Dance, that Ellie puts on at the Farm, and that's sitting on her guitar when she comes back. The songs that play in the game are "Little Sadie" (while Dina is dancing and Ellie is talking to Jesse), "Ecstasy" (Ellie and Dina's first kiss), and "Ain't No Grave" (the one they dance in the kitchen to).
> 
> Also, credit to just_making_it_gay_97 for Dina's horses name, Japan. I read it in their "Jackson" series and can't imagine a better one. I've also always liked seeing naming continuity among unnamed characters in different peoples fics, so I thought "Be the change you want to see in the world"
> 
> Edit: I've been graciously informed that Dina's horse is officially named Japan. No wonder it sounded so perfect. All the little details you can miss in this game are astounding. That's no less of a recommendation for just_making_it_gay_97's "Jackson" series though, it's great.

Her eyes still closed, not quite ready to meet the day, Dina reaches across the bed, finding it empty. 

She slowly forces her eyes open, letting them adjust to the sun shining through the windows, barely filtered by the curtains. It’s always so bright coming in this room in the morning. 

Whoever built the farmhouse with the only bedroom facing east was a real dick.

The relentlessness of the sun notwithstanding, this was always one Dina’s favorite times of day. Waking up in their house. In their room. In their bed. 

Together. 

This is how it’s supposed to be for them. Peaceful, simple. Right.

Things had gotten harder lately. Ellie tried to hide it, but her episodes had become a more and more frequent occurrence . She was staying out longer when she went out to hunt, but coming back with less. She was getting thinner, pretending to eat but mostly just moving the food around the plate like a sullen kid. 

Dina knew Ellie wasn’t sleeping. She knew because Dina was rarely able to sleep through the night too. 

Sometimes Dina would open her eyes in the dark, and just silently watch as Ellie sat on the edge of the bed and stared at the broken watch that she kept hidden under some clothes in a drawer. Dina could remember seeing Joel wearing it. She wondered why Ellie felt like she had to keep it a secret from her. 

Dina could tell sometimes she would cry quietly while looking at it, other times she would grind her teeth, jaw clenched tight, her breath heavy.

And she wouldn’t talk about any of it, no matter how hard Dina tried to get her too. She just acted like it would go away. Like she could tough it out. Write in one of her damn journals. 

But… when they wake up in bed together, and the first thing they see when they open their eyes in the morning is each other, and Ellie smiles that smile at her, Dina knows they’re going to be alright. 

Well, when they do wake up in bed together, that is.

This morning, Ellie and JJ are nowhere to be seen, but from downstairs she can hear the familiar comforting sounds of Ellie playing her guitar and singing sweetly, she guessed to their son. He loved it when she played for him.

She made her way out of bed and quietly down the stairs. In the front room that she used for weaving and where they kept JJ’s toys, sat Ellie on the arm of the couch, her back to the door, serenading JJ. The infant was on the rug playing with some wooden blocks and laughing. Ellie was still wearing just her tank top and boxer shorts, and with the early morning sun spilling in, framing her body, Dina couldn’t remember seeing a more beautiful sight. 

If Ellie had heard her or knew she was there, she didn’t give her any indication, just kept playing and singing in her soft voice, breathy voice.

“... _Give me a lifetime of promises and a world of dreams_ …”

Dina wasn’t sure she recognized the song, at least not the way Ellie was playing it. Ellie had a way of taking songs they had listened to together, slowing them down. Changing the mood. Making it sound like they had always been written just for the two of them. 

She was pretty sure it wasn’t one of Ellie’s originals though. She never played those anymore.

“ _Speak the language of love like you know what it means_ …”

JJ was looking at Ellie with so much adoration. He loved her so much. Watching them together always caused Dina’s heart to overfill, spill out, and then just start all over again.

All she could do was lean against the doorframe, hugging her arms, taking it in. Worried she would ruin the moment if she came into the room, like an intruder on something special and private. 

“... _mmmm and it can’t be wrong_ …”

This right here… this was worth everything. Dina could take on whatever Ellie was carrying, whatever mask she thought she had to wear sometimes, because she knew the Ellie right here was the real one. Her Ellie.

“ _Take my heart and make it str_ -”

There’s a loud discordant snap as one of the strings on Ellie’s guitar breaks under her strumming, whipping around and slapping back into the wooden body of the instrument. The noise jolts Dina out of her reverie, and JJ’s face turns from joy to blustery tears after he comes down from the shock of the surprise. 

Well, so much for beautiful sun-framed moments. "Back to work", she thought with a smile.

“Aww, bud, c’mere”, JJ reaches his arms up to her as Dina walks over and picks him up, propping him on her hip so she could pat his chest lightly with her other hand. He almost immediately begins to calm, but little hiccups and unhappy murmurs remain for just a little bit.

“Yeeeah, that’s better, ya goober”, she smiles and smacks kisses onto his cheek repeatedly until he’s giggling. 

Bouncing JJ in her arms and laughing again, she says over her shoulder, “Here, I thought I was the showstopper in the family, turns out this guy can bring one to a halt pretty good too, huh El?”

Dina turns to look back at her with a sly smile, expecting her to have some retort about her supposed “showstopper” status locked and loaded, but Ellie is clearly somewhere else. 

Ellie’s eyes are glazed over, darting around, not able to focus on anything present in the room. Her entire body is shaking so much it rattles the guitar, the loose broken string vibrating in the air, adding its own strange hum. Her breathing is quick and ragged, coming out of her mouth in hot broken waves. It looks like Ellie might start screaming at any moment. 

Dina panics for a brief moment, unsure of whether to put JJ down or go straight to Ellie. Not really making either decision she kneels quickly in front of the couch, placing JJ on the cushion next to them while reaching for Ellie’s arm. 

“Hey, El... El.” She’s learned to speak in a direct, steady voice during these attacks.

By the time she touches her, Ellie has closed her eyes, and brought her own hand to her chest. Dina rubs her arms softly with her thumbs, holding her firmly, and Ellie’s breath evens out. 

“Yeah… hey, that’s better. That’s better. That’s right... You’re home.”

Ellie is taking long, deep breaths, blowing them slowly out of her mouth. She clears her throat, and opens her eyes, looking down at Dina in front of her.

Dina is just giving her a reassuring smile. That was a quick one.

“That was… yeah… I’m… I’m so-”

Dina cuts her off, “Hey, don’t apologize, it’s okay.” 

Ellie sucks her lips into her mouth and nods. She looks like if she were to stand, she’d have to slump back down immediately.

“Yeah… yeah… I’m okay…”

JJ whines hungrily next to them on the couch. 

Dina gives an over dramatic sigh, trying to diffuse some of the tension in her body, and takes Ellie’s hand off her chest, bringing it to her lips to kiss her rough palm.

“Duty calls.”

She picks up JJ and stands with an exaggerated huff, “Ugh, you’re getting hefty.”

Leaning down to kiss Ellie’s forehead, she starts to make her way to the kitchen, offering softly, 

“Why don’t you take all the time you need, and I'll get us something going for breakfast?”

“S...Sounds nice, babe.” Ellie replies, not moving from the couch.

Twenty minutes later, Dina hears Ellie coming down the stairs, and putting on her boots.

She leans out of the kitchen to see Ellie fully dressed, looking like she’s heading out the door. 

“You, uh… going somewhere, Red?”

Ellie feigns a smirk and continues tying her laces. 

“Um, yeah. It’s nice out, I kinda thought I might go hunting, catch something for dinner... How’s that sound?” 

Dina just sighs. Ellie’s playing the “Things Just Got Tough and I Never Learned How to Talk About It Because I Was Raised By a Man Who Thought the Only ‘Feelin’ You Can Openly Express Was Big Texas Pride” card.

That old chestnut.

The frustration begins to build in her, but all she can bring herself to reply with is,

“Oh.. uh, okay. I guess that’s fine.”

Dina knows there’s no stopping her from leaving, “El…”

Ellie pauses for a moment, then moves towards her, just to swing past to go get her rifle from the mudroom. 

“...can I give you something to eat at least?”

Ellie just brushes it off, moving back past her into the dining room, checking the slide on the gun, “Not hungry, thanks”.

For some reason that pushes some angry button in Dina. Ellie can’t just keep walking out the door on her. 

It’s like she thinks Dina isn’t going through this with her. Does she think Dina doesn’t have nightmares too? Doesn’t want to just curl up in the corner and scream and scream and scream? Doesn’t want to just go out and kill something sometimes because she gets so mad that it feels like her skin is crawling and her chest is on fire and she doesn’t know why? 

How can Ellie look at her and not see that? 

How can Ellie be so selfish? 

“Ellie, stop.”

She keeps examining her rifle, her expression staying blank, her eyes purposefully away from Dina..

Dina puts her hand roughly on top of Ellies, forcing her. 

“Stop. Fucking look at me.”, she wants to yell, but with JJ there in his high chair, she has to keep her voice low. She makes her tone clear though.

Ellie finally sets the gun down heavy on the table, and turns her head. 

Her expression isn’t what Dina expected.

Ellie isn’t getting ready to argue with her. Dina almost would have liked that. At least then they could get it out.

Her face isn’t twisted up in annoyance, or anger, or sadness.

It’s just pain. Pain and guilt. 

Ellie barely can barely whisper out “Di… I..”

Dina swallows every word she had prepared, only able to look away so she can compose herself before turning back with a half smile.

“How about some rabbits? That’d be nice.”

Ellie quickly swipes at her eyes and nods, looking away. “Yeah… yeah, some rabbit… I can… I can do that.”

They just stand there awkwardly in the dining room for a while, together but apart.

Ellie starts to walk towards the door, and Dina grabs her, wrapping her arms around her neck, pulling her close, gripping the fabric of her shirt. Ellie’s arms wrap tight around her waist, her hands coming up pressing flat against her back, like she needs her closer. Like she needs them to be pieces of a whole, stuck together.

When they break apart, Dina kisses her softly, tells her to be safe and to be home soon, and watches her walk across the field into the woods.

Several hours later, Dina’s hanging clothes in the backyard with JJ in his sling and hears the gate open over the record player, bringing a smile to her lips, the pain of the morning washed over by the elation at Ellie’s return. She goes inside through the kitchen and looks out front to see Tommy hitching his horse to the porch post. 

She heads out the front door to greet him with a long half hug, awkward with JJ around her chest, but still earnest. He tickles JJ’s nose with his finger.

“Hey, darlin’, been a while.”, he says, limping up the stairs with her. 

“It has, hasn’t it?,” Dina rubs his bicep, happy to see the man, rough as he was looking these days. It was hard to see him like this, it reminded her of everything else that was lost in Seattle. Not to mention what she had learned he was capable of there, finding the evidence of his handiwork in the Serevena. On the way back to Jackson, she had heard him telling Ellie about all the other Wolves he had killed too, when they both thought she had gone to sleep.

That ugliness didn’t erase her affection for him though. He had lost Joel too. People do ugly things when they’re hurting. Plus, he had gone to try to keep Ellie from going herself. As big a misunderstanding of Ellie's character as that was, Dina respected him for it.

“What brings you all the way out here. Word of our produce finally getting around?”

Tommy chuckles a little, but she can tell he’s distracted, looking over Dina’s shoulder, inside the house through the screen door. 

“Ya’know, it’s jus’... Ellie ‘round?”, he grins out the side of his mouth.

“I got somethin’ she’s gon’ wanna see.”

\----------

“Anya, you know, I don’t think Pepper is looking so good...”

Anya turned in her saddle to look at Dina, concern shooting across her face.

“Wait, really? What’s wrong with her?”

“Yeah…”, Dina can barely hold herself together long enough to get the punchline out, “...she’s looking a little horse.”

Dina bites her lips, waiting.

Anya just seems confused, and looks across the well trodden path at Antony. 

“Hey, do you think she looks sick too?”

He just shrugs, looking his usual amount of bored, flipping an old coin, catching it, flipping it over on his hand, looking disappointed when he reveals the result to himself. Repeating.

“Looks pretty normal sized to me.”, he says.

Dina can only sigh, and go back to scanning the windows of the overgrown gas station, pretending there’s going to be something to see that wasn’t there yesterday. 

“Well… that one killed with some crowds”, she says to herself, her left hand instinctively rising to her chest, her thumb rubbing her shirt pocket.

Despite the lack of appreciation for her comedic gifts among her cohorts, Dina couldn’t deny the uplifting effect that going out on patrol was having on her. Weeks of being able to get out of Jackson for long hours at a time. Getting to spend so much time on Japan again. She came home with energy, and played with JJ all evening, instead of just being exhausted. She poured herself into learning the guitar.

It was just what she had needed. 

Not all that she needed, but it filled the cup a little. 

She’d been paired up with two seasoned patrol partners: Anya McNamara and Antony Thomas. Anya was a tall girl, short brunette hair, around Dina’s age. It was strange to be around someone her own age that she hadn’t grown up with, but also kind of nice to get to know a brand new person. 

Dina had only met her once before they were assigned together, in the medical clinic when she, Ellie, and Tommy brought their broken bodies back to Jackson. Anya had been at the front desk waiting for something when they had been led in in a furor by Maria and several others, and she had helped Dina lay a struggling Ellie down to get her arm looked at. 

Dina liked her well enough. She was kind, and a little spacy. She liked Dina’s jokes, when she caught them.

Antony had been one of Jesse’s oldest friends, and Dina could always remember him and his brother, DeShawn, being around. She had always known he had a crush on her, but he never seemed jealous or bitter of Jesse. Never made it _too_ obvious or awkward. She always liked that about him, made her think he was one of the good ones. He was trustworthy, hardworking, a little bit funny at times. 

Honestly, he reminded her of Jesse in a lot of ways. 

He had spoken at Jesse’s funeral, not that there had been a body to bury. They had no horses left to carry them, and in the state the three of them had been in by the end of Seattle, they were lucky they made it back to Jackson themselves. 

Jesse was actually buried next to the Cassandra Theater, in a grave Ellie had dug in the mud with the butt of her rifle and one broken arm. It was the best they could do for their friend.

Antony’s words hadn’t been eloquent, but they were heartfelt. He shook Mitchell’s hand afterward. Gave Robin a long hug. He had since grown a beard. 

Why do guys do that? Grow grief beards?

The first day back out she had been anxious. She hadn’t fired a round since Seattle at anything except in the target range so she could knock the dust off, and despite her bravado to Maria in order to convince the woman to let her back on patrol, she was pretty sure that shooting a rifle would be about a “FUUUUUUU-” on the pain scale. She hadn't even bothered trying. 

She carried it anyways, important to dress the part, even if it’s just for show. She felt confident enough in what she could do with her handgun and her hunting knife, should it come to it. 

Turns out, it never really came to it. Her patrol partners usually picked things off from a distance before she ever had the opportunity. 

If she would have said Antony was a hell of a shot, then Anya was a bonafide natural. It was like she was made with that rifle in her hands. Dina wondered who taught her, because she had casually mentioned while out one day that she had grown up with her family in the Atlanta QZ. 

Guess some people are just born with it. 

Not that their skills came into play much. The routes they took had all been pretty clear. A handful of Runners every few days. Never more than a single Clicker in a basement or somewhere someone had forgotten to check. An old abandoned place full of spores that needed to be swept and boarded up, but usually was found to be empty, besides the poor soul at the source of it. 

From what Dina could gather from the pre-patrol meetings, that was becoming pretty commonplace, no matter what route was done. She’d heard after the big horde that Tommy and Joel had come across last year, there had been something of a group purge. 

It seemed Jackson wasn’t just becoming a place safe within the walls, but an area safe-zone.

Dina gave one last look inside the window.

“All clear here.”, she says, turning Japan around, satisfied the rest stop wasn’t harboring any threats. Just like yesterday. And the day before. And tomorrow, most likely.

The three of them sauntered down the trail to the next outpost on their route, without much hurry. 

She didn’t know what Maria had been so concerned about.

\----------

They had a conversation one day while clearing a spore filled house about something Dina had never really thought about. 

“You know”, Antony spoke up from the silence when they confirmed there were no infected lingering inside, “I was thinking-”

“And now you need a nap?”, Dina cut in, and Anya giggled. 

Antony faked a laugh along with them, the sound muffled behind his mask, him used to being the butt of the joke by now. “I was THINKING… if it weren’t for the hordes, if we all kept doing patrols…”

He paused when they heard something skittering around outside. Anya checked a window, and confirmed it was just a squirrel running down one of the gutter pipes on the side of the house. 

“... that pretty soon, there wouldn’t be any of the older ones around here. No Bloaters or Clickers. Probably not even any Stalkers.”

Dina wanted to add “or Shamblers” to his list, but as those had never been seen anywhere near Jackson, why freak him out? He probably would have thought she was just joking anyways. They didn’t sound real when you described them.

Anya continued his thought, “There’d just be Runners… and if we were careful with them, they’d die out to…”

Antony nodded, “No infected at all… can you imagine?” 

Dina considered the thought. It had only crossed her mind once before. In that abandoned movie theater so far away from here. When Ellie told her about how she was immune. Before she told her she couldn’t make anyone else that way.

She had honestly never thought about there being no infected around Jackson being a real possibility, certainly not something achievable. 

Would they still do patrols if there weren’t infected?

She banished the thought. Of course they would. She didn’t need to worry about being stuck inside the walls. They’d have to make sure the creatures weren’t somehow coming back. And there were always hunters.

“You know, _I_ was thinking…”, she waited for someone to jump in with a quip, but as usual, no one did. She really missed that.

“I saw a place covered in trip wires once.” 

Antony chimes in then, “Cool story.”

Finally.

“Ha-ha-ha.” She continues, “You know like… lines tied up to explosives, where if someone walks into it, it pulls a pin and it sets the bomb off?”

Anya gives a shiver, “Ugh, sounds like a horrible place.”

Dina can only offer a humorless chuckle, “Uh… yeah… it was in just about the worst place I’ve ever been. Anyway, I was thinking we could set those up around here, in areas we know hordes move though? Might start to solve a bit of that problem.”

Anya looks confused, “Why would you want to make Jackson like the worst place you’ve ever been?”

Dina is taken aback by the way she put that. She’s just offering a suggestion...

“I think it’s a great idea. We should bring it up with Maria”, Antony says over indulgently, nudging Dina with his shoulder and giving her a smile as he leads them out the door.

Dina just smiles back and nods. It’s a nice effort, guy.

The smile is all she can give.

\----------

After another eventless patrol one day, Anya invites her to one of the bonfires.

Dina can’t help but think that in another lifetime, she was the one going around, inviting people to things like this.

After dinner with the family, she decides to go, with a little encouragement from Robin. She thinks it’ll be good for Dina.

“Get out, talk to people, be young. Mitchell and I will take care of the Turnip.”

Dina is less convinced. Bonfires were something she used to go to when she was with Jesse. 

And if those memories weren’t painful enough, what she used to really look forward to going to them for was Ellie. The two sitting next to each other in front of the flames, cuddling... "for warmth", sometimes Ellie playing guitar “for the group” but looking at her through most of the song. Back when they were pretending they could ever just be "friends". 

They were never just going to be friends. 

Not that they weren't friends. Ellie hadn't just been the person her heart did gymnastics for whenever she came into a room. She was also the person who for years she could rely on, tell anything to. Play stupid games with and joke with and be comfortable with, not afraid of judgement or disappointment. She missed her friend just as much as her love sometimes.

She finds herself heading out after the sun goes down.

When she arrives at the gathering out on the edge of town, she’s met by a fair amount of surprised faces. She assumes it’s because she hasn’t been seen at one of these in nearly two years, though it could also be because she’s _never_ been seen at one of these wearing the same clothes she wore on patrol. 

Things change.

Just… dive back in.

“What up, nerds?”

People seem to ease a bit. It’s just Dina. Everyone loves Dina.

Anya moves over on the log she’s sitting on, offering Dina a space next to her. Dina obliges, settling in. She recognizes a lot of the faces. She doesn’t recognize a few others. Antony is there laughing with DeShawn, pretending not to have very much noticed her arrival. 

A bottle of whiskey is being passed between the group, and it makes it’s way over to her after Anya takes a long pull. She quickly hands it to someone else.

“Oh, I’m sorry, do you not…?”, Anya asks, overly apologetic. 

“Uh, no it’s okay, I do…”, Dina’s skin itches under her shirt pocket, “... just not whiskey.”

At that, Antony comes over, hauling a bottle with “vodka” written in black marker on a strip of tape wrapped around it. He sits down on an adjoining log, and offers the bottle, eyebrows raised.

Guy has got ears like a bat. 

“This going to make me go blind?”, Dina asks, only half kidding. Plenty of people around town made their own hooch. She knew Antony and his older brother were some of them. You had to have a hobby to get through the long days, even better if it made you as many friends as distilling liquor did. Not everyone was good at it though. 

There had been… mishaps.

Antony laughs, a little too much. He’s either drunk already or trying pretty hard. “Hey, that wasn’t mine. We..”, across the group, over the fire, DeShawn raises his fist. What’s with the hearing in this family? 

“...make a fine product.”

Dina just gives him a blank face.

“Annnnd, I didn’t make this. Travis found it on patrol.” 

Travis, ugh. Another of Jesse’s old friends. This one, Dina was not a fan of. The kind of guy who was always trying to get a rise out of people, then acted like you were the problem for getting offended. There’s always one in the group. He was here tonight, making some girl uncomfortable, Dina was sure.

And of course his name was “Travis”.

He did love his liquor though. If there was anything Dina could trust Travis on, it would be booze.

She takes the bottle from Antony, sighs, and quickly takes a large drink from it.

She nearly chokes.

“What the fuck! I.. “, she sputters, her throat, her chest, her mouth, everywhere burning, “... I..ahem”

She has to take a second, “I... don’t think this is vodka, man.”

Antony laughs heartily, “Who said it was?”

Dina points at the scrawled writing on the tape still coughing. She thinks she's probably going to die. This is it. “Uh, the fucking label?

Antony shrugs, and reaches back for the bottle, “Guess you can’t trust anyone these days.”

Dina narrows her eyes at him, holds on to the bottle for herself, and prepares herself for another drink.

The night carries on amiably, just a group of young friends talking around a fire. Dina has let herself drink enough that she’s more comfortable, maybe a bit too much, her mind slowing down, but she knows she’s still separate from them. In her heart, she knows she’s not like these people. Not anymore. She wonders if she ever will be again.

A part of her hopes she will. Another part knows that means letting go of something she's not willing to part with.

It isn’t late, but she’s missing JJ, and wants to get some practice with her guitar in, though she’s not sure she’s got the manual dexterity for it right now. She’s about ready to say her goodbyes for the night, when a woman carrying a rifle slung over her shoulder jogs up to the group, interrupting some disgusting story Travis is telling.

No huge loss there.

Dina only recognizes her as one of the people who stands guard on the wall. She seems out of breath, like she’s been running all over town. 

“Hey… whew… is there… is there a Dina here?”

The whole group turns and looks at her as she stands up, then wobbles a bit on her feet, her drinks rushing to her head. 

“This is Dina”, she says, throwing her arms out in presentation, trying not to stutter her own name a bit.

The woman looks relieved, mostly that she doesn’t have to run around anymore. 

“Oh thank god. Can you come with me please?”

Everyone makes “oooOOOOoooo” sounds, like she’s gotten in trouble at school.

Dina plays along with them, laughing a bit, “Uhhh-oh… what’d I do?”

The wall watcher just waves her along, not much amused.

“Maria says she needs to talk to you. Now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you aren't here for Tina Turner, I don't know what you're here for.
> 
> I didn't really mean for this one to end on a cliffhanger, it just kind turned out that way. It felt like the natural end for the chapter.
> 
> Find me on [Tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/whiskeytango8686) . Send a writing prompt for this series if you'd like, maybe I'll run with it.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ellie's back.
> 
> A new arrival in Jackson.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was probably the most satisfying chapter to write so far, after the first one. I really like the framing of it, I hope you all do too. It's also the longest one so far, and I know they've all been pretty long so far, so I really appreciate everyone who left comments, kudos, or just taken the time to read it. It really means a lot.

“Ellie’s back”

The words shake Dina, knocks the breath from her lungs. 

Her heart flips. Skips a beat. Flips again. 

Is she having a heart attack? No… 

Ellie.

Skips again.

No?

There’s not time for that now.

Her companion seems unphased by what they’ve told her, like it wasn’t something Dina had been longing to hear. 

She tries to stay calm. 

“How do you know?”, she asks, totally cool. Totally collected.

She thinks she might pass out.

“Maria just told me, asked me to work her back in patrol rotation, since I’m, you know… such a big deal now.”

Jesse had just been promoted to lead one of the patrol shifts a while back. He never missed a chance to mention it. What was that phrase she’d heard once? 

“Big fish in a small pond.” 

Jesse was looking to be Jackon’s biggest fish, and let everyone know about it. 

They were walking hand in hand down one of the main streets in the downtown area, going to get breakfast at the Tipsy Bison, like they did most mornings that they didn’t have patrol now that they weren’t required to go to school anymore. Well, Jesse hadn’t been required to for a couple years. 

Until recently, most mornings had included Ellie as part of the group. Dina loved going and picking her up on the way there, knocking on the door, invariably waking her up. The girl always slept in. She was so adorable when she had just woken up.

All of a sudden Dina didn’t feel the least bit hungry.

She gives Jesse a playful shove that came out a little harder than she intended, sending him a few steps away, breaking their hands apart. He rubs his arm, as though he’s been mortally wounded. She needed more information.

Her best friend had just vanished one day, nearly a month ago now. She just made off on Shimmer in the early morning hours like a fucking ghost. No explanations, not even a note. Just missing. Shortly after it was discovered she was gone, Joel was too. 

Since then, Dina had made a point of going by Ellie’s little garage-house-shack-thing in Joel’s backyard every day, just to make sure she didn’t miss her when she got back. Sometimes twice a day. No luck yet. 

Each time, Ellie was still gone, and Dina would walk away alone again.

The questions come spilling out of her, “When did she get back, just this morning? Was Joel with her? Was she alright?”

Jesse smirks at her rapid fire questioning, “Last night I think...”

Last night?! God damnit, Dina knew she should have made yesterday a twice-a-dayer. She could have skipped movie night with her roommates. She’d already missed a whole night back that she could have spent giving Ellie shit for doing this to her.

“...why are you asking me for anyways? Go talk to her yourself. I know it’s all you’ve wanted to do since I told you. Why do you think I talked to you about dinner with my parents tonight first?”

Dina is already jogging away from him, having planted a quick kiss on his cheek before he was finished with his sentence, “Dinner tonight, yeah, love you, byyyyyye.”

He calls after her, “I kinda meant go talk to her after we eat breakfast!”

She’s already turned a corner.

She takes the back way to Joel’s house, around the greenhouses to the side gate into the backyard, hoping to avoid a conversation with him. She loves the man, but her mind is firmly fixed on just one person. It’s all she’s got room for. She just doesn’t have time for any “howdy’s” or “fixin’ to”s right now.

She has things she needs answered.

Why had Ellie left? Why hadn’t she told anyone? 

Why hadn’t she told Dina? 

Dina would have gone with her, wherever it was she was going. Maybe she could have helped. She’d been out on her own for nearly a year when she was only 12, surviving, chasing rumors of a safe haven before she’d finally found Jackson. She could handle herself just as well as anyone else. 

She was “ride or die”. Whatever that meant. She wasn’t sure. She saw it on a shirt once with two guys holding guns. It sounded cool. She thought it was something you’d say to a friend you’d fight for.

Ellie wouldn’t have even needed to ask, just told her she was leaving, and Dina would have been right beside her.

Ellie goes, she goes.

She turns around the edge of the garage-house-shack, and see’s Ellie coming out of the door, and she can’t help it. All that frustration falls away. All she can see is Ellie there in front of her.

Stupid, infruiating, wonderful Ellie.

She’s so quick to run to her and wrap Ellie up in a tight bear hug, that she doesn’t notice the angry, distant look on Ellie’s face. Or the packed bag in her hand.

“Ellie, oh my god! I’m so. Happy. To. See. You!”, Dina is practically screaming in Ellie’s ear, shaking her with every word.

“Hey Di… good to see you too.” Ellie offers, a little halfheartedly for Dina’s tastes, given the circumstances. This is a reunion! There should be drinks. Maybe streamers. If Dina had known this was going to happen, she’d have made paper crowns for the occasion.

Dina pulls back and looks at her, a huge toothy grin painting her face. God, she missed Ellie. She’d never really had a best friend before her, except for Talia, so she didn’t know what it should feel like when one just stepped out of her life, but she knew it was like she’d lost a piece of her own body when Ellie had disappeared. Like she was trying to walk around missing one of her legs, or trying to weave with only one arm. 

Like Ellie had taken her heart away with her.

No, c’mon, that’s not the right way to put it. Her heart was for Jesse. Had been for a while now.

But Dina couldn’t deny the pain in her chest when Ellie was gone. The sharp, stabbing pain when she found out she was missing. The dull, hollow ache during the long days while she was away.

Maybe it was like Ellie had taken one of her lungs? Yeah. That’s better? 

Wait, so now she needs Ellie to breathe? 

She tables these thoughts. Something to look at later. Ellie is in front of her now.

In front of her looking incredibly morose. Dina wasn’t used to seeing this color on Ellie. Her whole face usually lit up when she saw Dina, her eyes would get so bright. Dina didn’t think she’d ever met someone with eyes like Ellie’s. When Ellie saw her, she’d almost always do this huge, ear to ear smile that Dina liked to think was just for her. Ellie’s Special Dina Smile. That Dina could think about when she was going to sleep at night.

Nope. Another thought to table. 

Secretly, Dina had even started to look forward to leaving a room they were both in, just so she could see Ellie’s face when she came back. That big, dopey, beautiful face...

Fucking. TABLED.

Dina decides she’s going to pull a Dina and power through whatever it is going on with Ellie,

“So... where ya been and are they selling these sunny dispositions there? I know some people who would benefit.” She grins, admiring her own joke. 

Ellie, apparently, is not in the mood. She rolls her eyes, and rubs the back of her neck with her hand, “I... I just had some shit I needed to figure out.”

Dina keeps pressing, giving her a little push on the shoulder. It’s maybe just an excuse to touch her, judging by how her hand lingers there, “Sooo mysterious. Come on, Williams, give me something here. You owe me.”

Ellie snorts, “oh yeah… what for?”

“How about for leaving me for a month, you asshole?”, she wants to say.

“Because I couldn’t stop thinking about you”, would be another option, both valid and true. 

Tabled.

Instead, she crosses her arms, going for a ‘righteous indignation’ look, “For WHAT? You know I actually had to console Cat? Poor thing was a wreck, you little fucking heartbreaker.”

Ellie looks away from her at that, her cheeks reddening, “Oh…uh... yeah. we talked about that. Her and I are good…”

Dina feels like she’d been punched in the chest. She’d already seen Cat?

“... actually, I’m going to be moving into her place for a little bit.”

She’d gone and talked to Cat before Dina even knew she was still alive, and now they were moving in together? Her heart fell into her stomach, and she was sure her expression followed suit. 

Why did this feel like she’d just been hit by a falling tree? Like she’d been utterly demolished? She wasn’t WITH Ellie, for fucks sake. She was with Jesse. Ellie didn’t actually owe her anything. Not her time, or affection. 

Or apparently any explanations.

She needs to get it together. Of course Ellie had gone to Cat first. Cat was her girlfriend. The person Ellie did owe those things too. 

So, why did Dina feel so cheated?

Why did it still hurt so much?

“Oh... Joel’s ok with that?”, she asked, trying to use the man as a shield against this happening. 

“Come on, big guy, now’s when I need you to be ‘fixin’ to’ to fuck this plan all up”, she sent out as a silent prayer to Joel.

Ellie’s face twisted into a pained, angry expression Dina had never seen on her before, “I don’t give a fuck what Joel thinks.”

The anger in Ellie’s voice stuns Dina. She doesn’t give a fuck what Joel thinks? Since when? The whole time Dina has known her, she’s thought Joel was the only person who’s opinion really mattered to Ellie. She had never spoken like that about Joel. Sure, she’d gotted mad at him, said some crazy shit, but he was her dad, in any way that really mattered. She never said anything she didn’t eventually take back. Nothing so full of venom. 

What happened out there?

“Ok… sorry”, Dina stammers out, not knowing what to say, not sure what will set off her friend. She’s never had to walk on eggshells with Ellie before. She doesn’t like the feeling.

Ellie takes a deep breath, bringing her face back to a more neutral expression.

“Look, Dina…”, Ellie shoulders her backpack and looks up at Joel’s house before quickly looking away. “...I gotta go.”

She starts walking quickly towards the side gate, leaving Dina by her house-garage-thing. Dina turns her head up to where Ellie had looked and sees Joel standing in his kitchen window, staring out at Ellie. He looks so sad. 

Seriously, what the fuck happened out there?

“Dina…”, Ellie calls out, a little hesitantly, breaking Dina’s gaze away from Joel. “Will you walk with me? 

Dina slowly makes her way over to Ellie, and nods. 

Ellie smiles a little. Not the Special Dina's Smile, but Dina will take what she can get for now.

She can set aside the questions she has. She can set aside whatever the feeling thoughts of Ellie living with Cat does to her. She can be whatever Ellie needs right now.

That’s what… that’s what friends do.

They walk together in silence. Anxious at first, growing more and more comfortable. More and more at ease. They way it ought to be between them. Together and easy.

Their hands hang at their sides, swaying, fingers grazing eachothers every so often. Each time sending yet another thought to be tabled for later into Dina’s mind. 

Ellie’s back now, and that’s all that matters.

Ellie’s back.

\----------

All Dina is able to get out of the Wall Watcher is that her name is Rebecca, but everyone calls her Becky, and that Rebecca who everyone calls Becky doesn’t know why Maria called for her.

Just that it was urgent.

Dina can hold her liquor as well as the rest of them, but all the drinks Dina had earlier are making her head swim more than she’d like, and she’s glad to be having someone to walk the uneven ground of the outskirts of town beside her. Easier to walk straight when there’s someone to balance off of.

Despite the joking back at the bonfire, she’s fairly certain she hasn’t done anything to warrant getting in trouble with Maria. Patrols have been going smoothly. She hasn’t destroyed anyone’s electronics lately. 

She’s definitely not about to get yelled at. Check that one of that list.

A worrying thought comes to her from out of the haze, and sobers her a little, causing her pace to quicken, and a shiver to run down her spine.

What if something has happened to Mitchell and Robin?

What if something has happened to JJ?

She stumbles a little, and as she rights herself, she brings her mind back to reason as well. The fear disappears almost as quickly as it arrived. If something had happened to JJ, Maria would come for her herself, or at least would have sent someone with the news so Dina could come running. Not sent Becky with no information. 

So. It must not be life threatening. Not _that_ urgent. She slows back down, but the sobering effect remains, at least a little.

She’s been fighting the urge to ask. It’s never this. She knows it’s pointless, but the question comes out of her mouth anyways, unbidden,

“Have… there been any new arrivals?”

She’s had an open request in with Maria to let her know if.. If there’s anything she should know. About any new arrivals to Jackson. So far, after months and months, nothing has come of it.

She’s almost stopped holding her breath when someone on the gate yells “New Arrival!”, only letting it out when they open and none of the faces are Hers. Almost stopped. 

Maybe next time she’ll be able to. 

Maybe the time after that she’ll hear the watcher call out and not even watch the gate open.

“Yeah, there was a group came in tonight. Looked pretty haggard, if you ask me.”, Becky reports casually.

Dina’s heart starts thumping hard in her chest, the sound of it pumping suddenly echoing in her ears. All of her muscles are tensing, like her body is preparing her for something, but doesn’t know what.

She tries to shake the alcohol from her head. She presses, not able to match Becky’s casualness. Not even making an attempt at it., “Were there any women with them? Around my age?”

“I dunno, how old are you?”, Becky says, seeming to think it was kind of funny until she looks at Dina and see’s the desperation on her face.

“Uh, yeah, one or two.”

Dina can practically feel her skin vibrating. Her pulse racing. She almost screams at the woman.

Why are they walking so slow?

She grabs the woman’s arm in a much tighter grip than is friendly, and yells, “Did either of them have reddish brown hair?! A tattoo on their right arm?!”

Becky is stepping away from her, like she’s something to be cautious of, “Shit, lady, I don’t know, maybe. What’s goi-”

Dina is already running.

Running in the direction of Maria’s office, on the other side of town at the front gate. Through the neighborhoods, through the business area. Heads turn as she flies by people out for the evening, some calling out to her, but she doesn’t stop for anyone. 

She fights through the dullness in her head from the nights drinking. Through the tightness in her chest and pain in her lungs. Through the burning in her muscles, begging her to slow down. 

How can she slow down? She’s running towards...

Running towards…

Towards what exactly?

She doesn’t know Ellie is there. Becky didn’t exactly confirm anything to her before she took off. All she heard was that there were new arrivals and that there were some young women among them.

Even if she is, what is it Dina is expecting? That she’ll see Ellie and Ellie will smile her Special Dina Smile and they’ll fall into each other's arms? She can’t erase all the months of pain that Ellie has put her through. That she’s put JJ through. 

The sleepless nights. Having to leave the farm. The nightmares. The anger.

So much anger. She tries to hide it. Tries not to think about it. Tries to linger on her memories of Ellie that make her smile or make her heart race or make her hand slip between her legs when she’s alone at night, but the anger is still there. 

That gnawing anger that makes you hate the person you love in a way you can’t hate anyone else, because no one else can find that shatter point in your heart and strike it just right.

You can’t fix that just by showing back up. Maybe it can’t ever be fixed.

Does Dina even want it to be? Can she look at Ellie and not just see disappointment and hurt and loss?

Does it answer that question that her heart is saying “You’re about to find out”?

See her first. 

See her first. Alive. Beautifully alive and real and back. 

Everything else later.

\----------

By the time she reaches Maria’s office, she is completely out of breath, her lungs on fire struggling for air. Her head pounds, the liquor and the running not agreeing with each other.

She leans an arm against the side of the wall, trying to pull herself together. 

Maria is standing outside quietly speaking to someone Dina has never seen before, her hand on his shoulder. She glances at Dina as she runs up, but quickly looks back to the man.

He’s medium height, thin blonde hair receding at the temples. Dina thinks he looks extremely gaunt, his cheeks hollow, like he hasn’t had enough to eat in a long time. 

A lot of people have that look about them when they first come to Jackson. It’s hard making it by out there. Dina thinks he must be one of the new arrivals. Did he come with…? 

Dina doesn’t have the courtesy right now to not interrupt them, still out of breath. “Ma.. Maria… I…”

Maria doesn’t spare her much of a look away from the man she’s talking to, “Dina, why don’t you just head inside?”

She can’t hide the anxiety in her voice, “Maria… is…”

Maria finally looks over to her, but in a way that tells her to just do as she’s told, “Dina, please. Just go in. I’ll be in there in a minute.”

Dina nods shakily, unable to argue, and walks up the small staircase to the office door. 

Every step up feels like a mile. She’s been waiting for this for so long. 

She’s not ready for it.

It’s all she’s ever wanted.

It’s the thing she’s been most afraid of.

She steadies herself, taking one last moment to regain her breath. Her body buzzing. Her heart loud in her ears. 

When she opens the door, Ellie isn’t there. 

Tommy is though.

The man is in his cowboy boots, jeans, and denim jacket. She thinks she heard Joel call it a “Canadian Tuxedo” once. He’s perched on the edge of the desk, his bad leg held out straight out, resting on one of the chairs, his arms crossed, head down, like he was waiting for her.

Dina's heart drops through the floor. She should have known better. She should have fucking known better.

It wasn’t going to be Ellie.

It was never Ellie.

Her body doesn’t untense. It just shifts from anticipation to rage. She can feel her eyes threatening to water up, and that is not going to happen in front of Tommy. 

She starts pacing around the room in front of the door like a caged animal, taking the moments in the corners when she’s turned around to quickly wipe away any tears that threaten fall.

For his part, Tommy doesn’t say a word. He knows she doesn’t want to hear anything he has to say. Hasn’t wanted to since he came to the farm all those months ago.

His accommodating silence just makes Dina more angry.

She stops pacing and swivels on him, “The fuck are you doing here, anyways?”

She hadn’t really looked at him yet, but Tommy looks… almost sad? Like he’s holding back.

“Well, darlin’, I am cap’an of the watch…”, he says, noncommittally. 

Dina isn’t having that. She had hope earlier. For a few brief minutes she thought she was going to have Ellie back, even if she wasn’t sure what that would mean to her. What she would do with that once she had it. 

That hope was taken away. Crushed on the floor of this office. Now, she’s looking for a fight. 

And Tommy Fucking Miller doesn’t get to not give her one. Not after the hell he unleashed on her life.

So she doesn’t pull her punches, “Oh, that’s right. Silly me… guess I thought you lost that in the divorce too.” 

Tommy’s looking at her now. That got his attention. 

He snorts a low laugh, “Tha’s funny…tha’s real funny... ya know, I been wondrun’ Dina, how’s tha’ pretty lil farm doin’ these days?” 

Ever the skilled hunter, Tommy knew where to cut. Dina’s blood boils. She thinks she’s about to attack him. Start with clawing out his good eye.

She goes back on the offensive. “Haven’t been there in awhile, but I heard there’s going to be a race in those parts next week. Maybe if you start hobbling now, you can make runner-up?”

Tommy is on his feet and in her face in a moment. Dina pulls back against the wall. It’s easy to forget with his injuries, but with him so close, with such anger on his face, Dina is vividly aware that Tommy is a dangerous man. 

There’s still that something else there in his expression that Dina can’t make out though. 

“Ya know what darlin’, tonight ain-”

The door opens, and Maria steps inside to the scene of Tommy angry, a foot from Dina’s face. Dina against the wall, her hand on a heavy paper weight. 

Maria sighs, “Fuckin’... not again, you two. I need you both to be civilized.”

Tommy starts, “Look, she-”

Maria, cuts him off. “Tommy… now? Really?”

That quiets him down, his mood changing almost immediately. The fight leaves his body, and he looks like he did when Dina walked in again. Like he’s guilty of something. Like he’s ashamed.

Dina looks between the two quizzically, trying to figure out what just happened.

“I’m gonna… “, he heads for the door and opens it. 

He looks back at Dina before walking out, and says in a voice so genuine it shocks her, “..sorry.”

Dina looks at Maria, and starts pacing again, while Maria heavily sits down at her desk.

“Sorry about the wait.”, she offers, not seeming to want to get around to it.

Dina stops, and takes a deep breath to try to calm herself down.

“Maria, what's going on? Why'd you send for me?”

Maria is looking away from her, she seems like her mind is elsewhere. Or like she doesn’t want to have this conversation. 

“Dina, why don’t you sit down.”

Dina can’t take it any longer, she has to know for sure.

“I heard about the new arrivals today, was Ellie with them?!” she blurts out, the words coming fast and harsh.

Maria exhales a sigh and turns her focus back to Dina,

“No, Dina. She wasn’t. Please sit down.”

Dina’s legs make the choice for her. She can’t stand any longer. She can’t tell if she feels better knowing or if the knowing makes it worse. 

It was never going to be Ellie.

“Dina… “, Maria pauses, like she’s trying to find the right words. “... just…”

She gives up searching for them, and just sets a tape recorder on the desk between them.

Dina recognizes it immediately. It’s the same one that sat on this same desk on her first day in Jackson. The same one that sits here on everyone’s first day in Jackson.

Right after anyone new arrives, after they’re checked through security, and given a medical once over, Tommy and Maria bring them into the office, and make them recount their story. Every detail. Everything they can remember. If they were around pre-Outbreak Day, details about that too. Everything.

Maria had a shelf full of people’s stories.

It seemed almost cruel, but she understood the purpose of it, both for posterity and security. They had to be sure about everyone they let in. If this was the price to be paid to get to live in Jackson, she didn’t know of anyone who had turned it down.

Knowing what she knew now, Dina imagined that Tommy would listen to a persons tape religiously if he got suspicious of someone, looking for any little hint of danger. Especially after what happened to Joel. 

Dina had hated it. The last thing she had wanted to do after nearly a year on the road alone was to tell a couple of strangers about every horrible thing that had happened in her life. There had been so many horrible things to tell.

Maria rewinds the tape, stops it, and lets her thumb hover over the play button.

“This is from…”, she stops to clear her throat. “This is from the man I was speakin’ with when you got here.”

Dina’s stomach is tied in a knot. This is all wrong. 

She wants to tell her to wait. That she doesn’t want to hear it. Wants to beg her not to play it, but her throat is dry and the words won’t come out. 

Maria lets out a breath, and presses play.

\---------- 

_-fzzt-_

_“-ait, wait, you were in… Santa Barbara?”_

_“... Yeah, look, I’m tired, and I really don’t want to talk abo-”_

_“Calvin, please, just answer his questions and we can get this part over with.”_

_“Ok… yeah, we were in Santa Barbara for awhile, that’s where we heard about Jackson, from one of the caravans that go up the coast.”_

_“I dun’ mean to be rude, but you and yer’ group all look a lil’ thin to be tradin’ much with caravans. What’d you offer ‘em?”_

_“...guns, alright?”_

_“How’d you git ‘em?”_

_“We… we just found them, scavenged them!”_

_“We need you to tell us the truth. We’ve had dangerous people come around before, startin’ trouble, and Tommy and I won’t allow that again.”_

_“... We… we…”_

_“...Calvin.”_

_“Oh god… we got the guns from them! We took them off their dead bodies!”_

_“ ‘ose bodies would that be?”_

_“They made us slaves! SLAVES! Then when we weren’t useful to them anymore, they let us get bitten and kept us chained up as pets! THEY DESERVED WHAT THEY GOT!”_

_“A’right, a’right… calm down, you’re among peaceful folk here now.”_

_“Calvin, how did you get away from them?”_

_“One… one night, maybe four or five mon-”_

_-fzzt-brrt-_

_“-ne broke in to where they kept us, a young woman. She’d already killed so many of them just by herself. She was looking for a friend of hers. One of us.”_

_“Calvin… this is very important. What did that woman look like?”_

_“Oh god… I don’t want to remember that ni-”_

_-fzzt-_

_“-lled so man-”_

_-brrt-_

_“-eed ya to tell us, what did she look like?”_

_“I don’t know… I don’t know… she was thin. Really thin. Maybe a little bit shorter than you...”_

_“Keep going…”_

_“Brown… I don't know, maybe red hair… not very long… I remember she… she had a tattoo on her arm. Looked like flowers or leaves or something.”_

_“Yer sure of that?”_

_“Yeah… yeah I’m sure. She was bleeding real bad from her side too… real bad. Like she was going to bleed out. Hard to forget that. And she was bit, on her hand.”_

_“Where’d she go after she let you out?”_

_“Why does that matter, like I said she was bleeding out AND she was bit. She was practically dead al…”_

_“Answer the question!”_

_“She-she went to go sa-”_

_-fzzt-_

_“-by, alright?!”_

_“Did you… say ‘Abby’?”_

_“Yes! But she was probably already dead too, her and Lev!”_

_“Calvin, we-”_

_“Look, god damnit, we killed every last person in that place, then we set it on fire and watched it burn! It burnt to the ground and no one, fucking no one made it out! No one! She didn’t make it out! I’m sorry, but whoever that girl was to you, she’s dead! She’s dead! She died out th-”_

_-fzzt-_

\----------

A low pulse.

Droning static.

She doesn’t hear Maria speaking to her. 

_She’s dead._

She doesn’t feel her reach out and touch her hand.

She can’t hear anything.

She can’t feel anything.

_She died out there._

She doesn’t know when she stood up, or when she left the room. 

She’s distantly aware of Maria calling after her, but not of when she started running, or what direction her feet were taking her.

She can’t see anything in front of her. 

_She was bleeding from her side._

Her body feels empty. Like everything left inside of her has been stolen.

_Like she was going to bleed out._

She thought Ellie had already taken everything she could from her, but she was wrong.

There was still so much left for her to take.

_Burnt to the ground._

Her breath is ragged but she doesn’t feel her chest constricting, demanding for air. She has nothing left to give to her body’s calls of discomfort and pain, trying to get her to stop. 

She doesn’t know where it is that she ends up when her legs finally give out and she drops on to the grass, first to her knees, then on her side. It’s somewhere along the wall, in one of the far corners of town where people don’t usually go. 

No tears come. She just lies there silently and waits. 

Waits for Ellie to come and find her and tell her that it’s not true. 

That she’s alive and here and to hold her and kiss her and that the past months have all just been a nightmare. That she never left.

That she’ll never leave her.

An hour passes. Two. 

Dina doesn’t move. She stays where she is and waits for Ellie.

At some point, the photograph she keeps in her shirt pocket makes its way into her hands, and she presses desperate kisses to it, willing it to come to life. The tears that wouldn’t come start to form.

She begins repeating a prayer, begging the picture to answer it.

The prayer she said the morning Ellie left.

The prayer she said when she had gone back to the farm.

She says it in a whisper, but it grows louder, becoming a sobbing cry, each time she screams it out and it doesn’t come true.

It’s only four words.

“Come back to me.”

But Ellie doesn’t come back. 

Ellie is never coming back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one was hard to write. There may be a pause between this chapter and the next, just a day or two while I recenter.
> 
> Find me on [Tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/whiskeytango8686) . Send a writing prompt for this series if you'd like, maybe I'll run with it.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ellie and Dina watch a movie.
> 
> Knowing and not knowing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for reading and commenting. It's really inspiring to me.
> 
> I know I said last chapter that it was the longest one. This one is longer. Sorry if you prefer brevity. Apparently it's not my strong suit.

“I’m telling you, I fucking saw it!”, Ellie says, throwing another log into the wood burning heater in the corner of the room, rubbing her hands together afterwards. 

It always got cold in her place so easily in the winter, probably coming in through the big garage door.

Dina sits on the far side of the couch, facing her, holding a mug of hot tea in both hands. 

“A ghost”, she says flatly, one eyebrow raised.

Ellie retakes her spot on the opposite end of the couch, her face absolutely serious, her demeanor incredulous at Dina’s lack of response.

“Yeah, a fucking ghost!”

Dina’s face remains unchanged, eyebrow still raised. Stoic, passionless. She slow-blinks once. 

Ellie crosses her arms in frustration with a huff and looks away from her, pouting, while nodding to herself.

“I saw it.”

Dina sets her mug on the coffee table and leans in until she’s crossed much of the span of the couch, her face changing to an overdramatic show of pity. She says softly,

“Ellie… sweetheart… were you high?”

Still looking away from her, a smile starting to crack through the pout, 

“Am I about to be high?”

Dina grins at her, and produces the joint she got from Jesse earlier out of the pocket of her zip up vest, waving it slowly in front of her “pouting” friends face. Ellie takes it from her fingers and reaches for her lighter.

It’s been months since Ellie had disappeared and finally came back, and things had slowly gotten back to some semblance of normal. It was painfully aware to everyone who knew them that something awful had happened between Ellie and Joel, but since neither of them seemed to ever want to talk about it, Dina didn’t pry. 

It felt so strange for Ellie to be keeping a secret from her. It made her wonder if there was anything else Ellie had never told her. She tried not to fall down that rabbit hole. 

Everyone has things they don’t want anyone else to know, not even their best friends.

Ellie has been living at Cat’s place with her and her mom, and that has been… hard. Dina feels like she barely see’s Ellie except when they have a work rotation together. Like Ellie was being kept from her, locked away, and she was only being granted visitation on the weekends or something like she’d see in one of those melodramatic movies about a married couple getting divorced.

She had spent so much time imagining what it would be like when Ellie returned, and this wasn’t it. 

When they do see each other though, wherever it is they are, on rotation or at the diner or on the street, unless she’s with Cat, it’s like two puzzle pieces locking back together. 

Being around Ellie was so comfortable. 

Not the same kind of comfortable like she felt with Jesse. She loved being with Jesse. With Jesse it was like falling onto a big couch, your spot still there waiting for you. So nice and familiar. You feel like you can just sit there forever. It’ll never fail to make you feel better.

With Ellie… it was more like… like when she first lowered herself into the bath, and the hot water touches her skin. Too intense at first, but then soothing. Easing any of the aches she’s accumulated through the day just by being around her. Enveloping her.

All around her...

All around her naked body...

That kind of comfortable.

Normal best friend stuff.

Then yesterday, Ellie had moved back into her own place without warning, and during group patrol this morning she asked Dina if she wanted to come over and watch a movie. Dina tried to not seem overly ecstatic when she screamed “yes” right into Ellie’s face.

“Yeah, well, you’re not the one who lives across from a fucking cemetery.”, Ellie said, blowing smoke slowly out of her mouth in that way Dina always found herself watching before handing the joint back to her.

Dina takes it and puts it out on the coffee table. 

“Oh my god, are we still talking about the fucking ghost?”, she says, laughing. 

They'd slipped easily back into the way things used to be. Sitting inches from each other on the the couch, getting higher than the fucking clouds, talking, telling stupid jokes that no one would laugh at except them. 

Ellie looks her in her reddening eyes, her tongue running over her teeth, 

“So you’re telling me you _don’t_ believe in ghosts?”

“You’re telling me you _do_!? Of _course_ I fucking don’t! I can’t believe I even have to say that out loud.”, she grins at Ellie, “I also can’t believe that out of all the things that are real, that _you’re _scared of ghosts.”__

____

____

Ellie throws her arms in the air.

“I didn’t say I was scared of it! I said I saw it! I saw it! I saw it! I FUCKING saw it!”

Dina rolls her eyes alllllll the way out of their sockets, gets up from the couch and heads over to crash onto the bed.

“Are we going to watch this movie or not?”

Ellie looks over at her excitedly, the whole previous topic forgotten in an instant. She gets up from the couch and hurries over to the tv, pops a disc into her playstation, grabs the controller, and gets onto the bed next to Dina. 

Dina’s stomach does some strange thing watching Ellie climb towards her on the bed with an excited smile on her face, but she tries to calm it back down as best she can.

“What’s this one called?”, her voice coming out higher than she means it to.

Ellie starts rambling, “ALIEN, it’s about a group of space truckers, coming home from a long job, when they get this spooky distress signal from a weird planet-”

Dina slaps her arm, “I asked what it was called, not for you to spoil it for me!” 

“Alright, alright! So touchy” Ellie says, giving her a mock apologetic look.

“It’s scary, right?”, Dina asks, biting the side of her lip.

Ellie nods enthusiastically, her voice goofy, “Ohhhh-hoho yuh!”

Dina grabs her hand and locks their fingers together, “I get to hold your hand then.”

Half way through the movie, Dallas has just made his fateful trek into the maintenance ducts of the Nostromo, Ellie is leaned against the headboard of her bed, and Dina is tucked under her arm, her head resting on Ellie’s chest, her own arm wrapped around Ellie’s side, their lower bodies under the covers.

If Cat walked in, she’d probably have a fucking rage stroke.

Jesse would probably be used to it.

As the film goes on, despite the intensity of it, Dina is distracted. She can’t help but ask. She’s been thinking about it since Ellie moved back into this place.

“Hey, um…”, she whispers over the movie.

“... yeah?”, Ellie responds, glancing at her.

Dina steadfastly keeps her eyes on the screen. “Why’d you move out of Cat’s place?”

She can feel Ellie’s heart start to pick up in her chest, but she doesn’t know why. It seemed like an innocent enough question to her.

It takes a little bit before Ellie responds, “Uh… I don’t know… I guess I just needed to…”

She pauses again. It seems like she’s choosing her words carefully. “I guess I just need some space for… So I could do… things I wanted to do.”

Dina doesn’t try to get anymore out of her, just goes back to the film, saying softly,

“Okay…”

As Ripley drifts into open space, they drift closer to sleep, the movie night turning into a sleepover, as it so often does with the two of them. 

Ellie has laid back, but they’ve kept their positioning, Dina under Ellie’s arm. She knows, somewhere in the back of her mind that they should separate, move to opposite sides of the bed. Maybe Dina should even be sleeping on the couch. 

She just can’t bring herself to pull away from Ellie.

She listens as Ellie’s breathing begins to smooth out, and she is almost asleep herself, when Ellie turns her head and says quietly into her hair, 

“I’m sorry, Dina…”

Dina doesn’t open her eyes, 

“You’re going to have to be a lot more specific…”

She can feel Ellie swallow, can feel her breath against the top of her head as she speaks. 

“I’m… sorry for not telling you I was leaving.”

Dina turns her head and looks up to Ellie as best she can in the darkness, searching for her eyes.

“Ellie…”

Their faces are so close. It would be so easy to…

“... I’m not going to ask why you left… just… if you ever do again...”

She looks down to Ellie’s lips for just a moment. So easy…

“... I’m going with you.”, she says it definitively, with no room for debate, and puts her head back down on Ellie’s chest, listening to her heart race.

Ellie whispers, so low and quiet it sounds like she’s saying the words to herself, and Dina can hear the smile in her voice,

“I know you are.”

Nothing else is said. 

They fall asleep, and the next morning, they’re still in each other's arms when they wake up.

\----------

More people come to the funeral than Dina was expecting.

It was easy to forget, with her sometimes surly attitude and tendency to withdraw, especially since she had left and people had turned their attentions towards “just being there” for Dina, but Ellie had had friends. People who cared about her. 

She had worked alongside the people in Jackson, laughed with them on town movie nights at the theater, bled with them out on patrols, cried with them when one of them passed on. 

She was one of them.

And so on a still, bright morning early in October, they came to the graveyard to pay their respects to their friend. 

It was what was done.

Rows of folding chairs had been set up, with a seat saved for Dina at the front. Everyone watches her as she goes and sits down, JJ in her arms, followed by Robin and Mitchell. Some people offer her condolences as she passes by, and she just nods.

Tommy sits in the row beside her, but they don’t look at each other. Dina’s face doesn’t even register that he's there, while Tommy seems to be making an effort to look away. Maria sits down uncomfortably beside him.

More people file in behind, filling the rows. Stable hands and wall repairmen Ellie had traded jokes and stories with while passing around a flask. School mates from the couple years they were required to go. Some younger kids that Ellie would rough-house with in the street when they’d run by, promising she’d “Get them one day!” as they defeated her. 

Anya sits behind Dina and gives her shoulder a light squeeze. Antony with his brother and the rest of the group that used to be so close sit a few rows back. Cat and her mom come a few minutes later and join them.

Maria is the only one who speaks. She had asked Dina if she wanted to say anything beforehand, but Dina had refused. 

Really… what was there to say?

Maria doesn’t so much talk about Ellie as she says facts about her. 

That she was from Boston. When she first came to Jackson. What rotations she worked. That she worked hard. How old she was when she…

When she…

That she will be missed.

When she’s done she takes a second to look at Dina, to give her a chance to reconsider if she wants to say anything. She won’t have this chance again.

Dina is just staring blankly ahead, looking at nothing. 

She’s been numb for days. 

As people get up to leave, they shuffle by the newly made headstone, placed next to Joel’s, each dropping a small handful of dirt onto the undisturbed ground in front of it. A stone urn is modeled with it, with some white flowers sticking out. Cat weeps as she walks by.

Dina stays in her chair, looking ahead into the middle distance. JJ has been still in her arms the whole procession, only occasionally making a little noise, and now he’s out like a light.

Tommy walks slowly to her after letting his dirt go, caution showing through his whole body, his good eye red, 

“... Darlin’... I… I’m so…”

Dina raises her gaze for the first time that day and just looks at him. Their eyes meet, and they stay that way, locked on each other for a few moments. Tommy breaks first, looking at the ground, shaking his head, and he limps away.

Robin stands up in front of her, a sad smile on her face and reaches to take JJ, “You go on and say your goodbyes, dear. I’ll take him. He doesn’t understand the significance of today.”

“The significance?” Dina thinks, letting Robin wrap her grandson in her arms.

She stands as everyone makes their way to the entrance of the cemetery, starting to talk among themselves, and she takes a few steps towards the headstones.

How is this significant? 

She looks at the paired markers, both with green grass just beginning to turn yellow in the autumn air growing in front of them, one with a small pile of dirt scattered about it.

There’s nothing here but a rock with Ellie’s name on it. 

Ellie isn’t here.

Ellie was somewhere out there, in California, her body mangled and burnt, drained of blood, growing cold before the flames reached her. 

Ellie was nowhere. 

Ellie had even taken from Dina a grave she could go to mourn her at.

Dina doesn’t stoop to pick up any dirt and drop it by the headstone.

She just turns and walks away.

\----------

Maria makes her wait to go back on patrols.

“It’s for your own good.”, the woman tells her in a hushed voice, pulling her aside after Dina shows up to the rotation meeting the morning after the funeral, to shocked faces.

“No one is expecting you to be ready yet.”

Dina shrugs her off. Fuck everyone else and their expectations of her. She needs this.

“I’m fine”, she says in a clipped voice, her frustration already starting to boil over.

Maria puts her hands on her hips, a telltale “Maria is about to put the law down” move, but keeps her voice low. 

“Yeah, well, do it as a favor to me then. Take a couple days. A week, at least.”

Dina rolls her eyes, throwing her arms down like a whiny teenager, and starts to protest. 

She can’t.

She can’t spend a week in the walls again.

Maria puts her hand on Dina’s arm and squeezes lightly, 

“I said it's a ‘favor’, but you know that’s not what I meant.”

She starts walking back to the group of people who get to stay on patrol, leaving Dina by the door, saying back over her shoulder,

“Take a week.”

In the slow days that follow, Dina learns the difference between not knowing, and knowing.

She wanders around the town, occasionally stopping by the clinic or the garden to check in. 

She passes by the gate and hears the watchers sometimes call out “New Arrival!” but she doesn’t turn her head to look, to make sure.

She sits at home in her room, looking at her artifacts. The portraits. The photographs. The shirt on her bed. 

They all mean so much more now.

They all mean so much less.

She doesn’t look at the picture she keeps in her shirt pocket anymore. She only transfers it to her new outfit everyday.

She plays with JJ, his laughter and joy a bright spot in all of this. She plays the guitar for him, and he claps his hands wildly, giggling that maniacal laugh only babies can get away with. 

It doesn’t seem to matter to him that Dina doesn’t play as well as She did. 

He probably doesn’t even remember.

Sometimes, when she’s with him, she’ll just start crying. A certain memory will hit her hard and fast.

Ellie holding him for the first time after Dina’s long labor on the floor of the farm house, Ellie’s face fixed in awe and the love on it immediate and apparent.

Ellie running around the house, holding him like he was a plane, making “voooshing” sounds as he laughed, calling him “The USS-JJ”. One time she’d stopped with him in front of Dina while she was cursing at the radio she couldn’t seem to make work, made an “oooo yeah” face, and said “Captain JJ, here appears to be a hot alien life form on this planet that has set phasers to stunning!”, before running off with him again. Dina didn’t know where that came from.

Ellie’s eyes staring into hers with JJ between them, fast asleep on their bed, the lamp light flickering in the room, mouthing “I love him so much”, before reaching below him and intertwining their fingers together, like their bare legs already were.

That one came to her a lot.

These memories would surface out of the depths, and she’d find her chest heaving, thick tears rolling off her cheeks. JJ would just keep playing with Olly or a toy car or his blocks, none the wiser, and she’d fall back off her knees onto the floor beside him and cry and cry and cry. 

It’s not that the memories hurt, even though they do. 

It’s not that Ellie isn’t here now to share them, even though she’s not. 

It’s that she knows now they’re all that’s left. There’s only ever going to be the memories.

And there will never be new ones.

\----------

One night of her suspension, she can’t stay inside any longer, and leaves the house after dinner. Mitchell uncharacteristically gives her a pat on the back before she goes, and nods. They share a glance, and she walks out the door.

She finds her way to the Tipsy Bison but doesn’t stay long, just quickly downing two shots of vodka before leaving. The eyes on her, the hushed voices as she comes and goes make her want to scream. Turn around and tell the people to go back to their fucking drinks, and find something else to feel sorry for.

She wanders the town for a while, letting the warmth of the drinks fill her chest, letting it dull down her thoughts, smoothing out the ragged edges that keep creeping back to Ellie. 

She sees the familiar glow of a bonfire up on one of the hills where she used to frequent. She starts to head in the other direction, but reconsiders, and starts climbing the hill. At least there will be more to drink there.

She comes into the clearing to find the same group as usual. Antony and Anya are there, having returned from the two day scouting patrol that Dina should have been on as well. She feels guilty seeing them. 

Everyone turns and looks at her as she emerges from the trees, their expressions going from laughing and happy to “oh you poor thing” in an instant. 

Just fuck right off with that.

She gives an awkward two fingered wave, and moves over to sit next to Anya, who has already made space for her. Anya gives her a little smile and offers the bottle she’s been drinking from. Dina checks that it’s not whiskey, and takes a drink. 

“Hey, baaabe, how are you holding up?”, Dina hears from across the fire.

Fucking Cat. 

“Oh, I’m fucking great. Top of the world.” She spits back, before turning to Anya, pretending to be deeply engrossed in the conversation she’s having with someone about patrol schedules, ignoring Cat's reply.

Some weed is being passed around the circle. Anya takes a hit off the joint before offering it to Dina.

Dina hesitates, but takes it. She hasn’t smoked since Ellie left. Her heart starts to pick up, her breath matching.

_You think it’s still good?_

She just stares at it between her fingers for a bit.

_You said it was a mistake..._

Taking a second to bring it to her nose, and she inhales along the side of it, closing her eyes.

_What are you doing…?_

She brings it up to her mouth, and closes her lips around the crutch.

_I don’t think you do…_

She breathes in, the smoke filtering through, passing over her tongue. She holds in the taste.

_No one is stopping you…_

She exhales slowly and watches the smoke drift away, mingling with the rising heat of the fire and disappearing.

She lingers with the joint close to her lips, her eyes half closed, a pair of small tears on her cheeks, her mind stuck on Ellie, until she feels eyes on her. 

She turns to Anya, who is looking at her like she walked in on Dina mid-climax.

“You uh… really like weed, huh?”

Dina stays at the bonfire, drinking and smoking, not really paying attention to what anyone is talking about. Every time she takes a puff, it brings her mind back to that library basement, but she can’t stop. She drinks after each hit to shut it back out again to keep the thoughts from over taking her, from making her break down in front of all these people.

The intrusive memories begin to win though. They begin to bleed through, and instead of being surrounded by these people, she’s on that old couch. 

Instead of hearing their voices, she just hears the hurried breathing, the nervous laughter as she and Ellie rushed to take off each other’s clothes.

Instead of seeing them in front her, she just sees Ellie.

Nothing but Ellie. 

At some point, Antony has moved next to her, and he and Anya are regaling her with stories she’s not hearing about the scouting patrol. She’s snapped back to cold harsh reality when she hears:

“So I had to let Ellie go.”

Dina whips her head around, looking for the source, finding it in Cat.

The older girl is still sitting across from her, arm and arm with Dina's old roommate Hannah, holding court, telling a sad story of Cat’s great lost love.

“It was just so obvious. Poor Dina over there...”, Cat looks over and gives Dina a smile, “...and Ellie had such adorable crushes on each other.”

Dina can feel something black and vicious start to coil up inside of herself, Cat’s eyes still on her. 

“It just wouldn’t have been fair of me to not let them have a little go at each other.”

Dina is on her feet as fast as all the drinks will allow her, her hands clenched into tight fists, ready to free some teeth from Cat’s smiling mouth. 

“How about you and I have a little go at each other, motherfu-”, she’s only a couple steps from Cat when Antony grabs her.

“Hey, hey, come on. Lets go”, he says, leading her away from the fire.

“She-” Dina starts, but he lets her go, trusting her not to go back.

“I know, but she’s… just being Cat. She’s not worth it. Walk it off.”, he says as they keep walking away.

Dina is shaking, over filling with rage. How dare she? 

Her mind fills up with Ellie. Everything they had gone through. All the joy. All the loss. All the pain. 

How could anyone reduce that down into something so small? So trivial?

She needs to feel something else. She can’t keep going on like this. Every moment feels like she’s going to shatter onto the ground into a thousand little pieces and she’ll never be able to find all of them again. Some parts of her will just be lost forever.

She doesn’t know why she does it.

She grabs Antony’s head and pulls his face down to hers, pressing a hot urgent kiss to his lips. 

Immediately she regrets it. 

She thinks in that moment that her body had wanted something to distance itself from Ellie, to forge a new experience to help cover up the old ones, but all it had done was brought thoughts of her rushing back, harder than before. 

Antony didn’t feel like her. He didn’t taste like her. He didn’t move like her.

He wasn’t her.

No one would ever be her.

She takes a quick step back, in time with his. 

“Dina… uh… you’re really drunk…”, he says, stammering, not able to look at her, “... I.. don’t think we should…”

She turns away from him, leaving him standing with the words still in his mouth, and walks down the hill, back towards town.

When she gets home, and wraps Ellie’s shirt tight around her body, in the moments before she passes out, for a brief painful second she thinks she’d rather just be dead.

\----------

“Hey… Earth to Dina?”

She comes out of her daze, sitting on Japan, trotting down a path next to Anya and Antony. 

“Oh… what? Sorry, what were you saying?”, she says, looking over at Anya, trying to act like she wasn’t somewhere else.

Anya continues, shaking off Dina’s inattentiveness, “I said I heard a joke last night and thought of you. Do… you want to hear it?”

“Oh if Dina will like it, I’m sure it’ll be hilarious”, Antony says, faux sincerity in his voice.

“Shut up. Hit me.” Dina says, throwing a glare at Antony then looking back over at Anya. 

“Ok! Let me remember exactly… alright. I was out looking for some camouflage pants yesterday…”, she starts, then stops, looking at Dina and Antony with a huge smile on her face.

They both look at eachother, and then back to Anya.

She looks like she’s about to explode. “... BUT I DIDN’T SEE ANY!”

Dina starts laughing, even Antony chuckles a little bit. 

Anya told a joke.

“That was… so, so dumb.” he says, guiding his horse, Antony Jr., down the trail.

“Yeah it was…”, Dina agrees, “... I fucking love it.”

It had been two weeks since the funeral, and things had eased a little bit. Maria had allowed Dina to return to patrol rotations, and she threw herself back into work, even picking up shifts at the clinic, the garden, along the wall. Where ever she could. 

She wanted to exhaust herself. 

Not give herself time to breathe. 

Not a moment to think. 

She just wanted to work, come home and be with JJ, go to sleep, and start over.

Antony, bless his heart, hadn’t said a word about what had happened at the bonfire. He just let it rest, and they moved back into an easy friendship once she came back onto patrol. 

Dina would have baked him a cake if she wasn’t too embarrassed to say what it was for.

They trot along the trail, quiet as it ever was these days, when they get to a fork that Dina recognizes instantly. She had been so lost in thought earlier, letting Japan move her along that she hadn’t realized where they were heading.

Hadn’t even realized this area was part of the route, their group having never been assigned it since the routes had changed a while back.

Anya pointed to the left side of the fork, “Either of you know what’s down that way?”

Antony starts to get his map out, “It should be…”

“There’s just an old farm… about five miles in.” Dina says quietly, almost to herself.

“Oh,” Anya says, turning Pepper towards that path, “think we should check it out?”

Antony raises his eyebrows in affirmation, starting to turn Antony Jr. in that direction as well. 

“No!”, Dina blurts out, surprising them both, making them hop in their saddles a little.

“Sorry, no… no one is ever th-”

She’s interrupted by a scream piercing through the woods, coming from that direction, making them all whip their heads down the trail.

Antony and Anya exchange looks, before he puts his heels into Antony Jr. to head towards the scream, “Sounds like someone’s there now.”

He charges off. Anya follows close behind.

Dina sits frozen on Japan.

A scream. Coming from this trail.

It brings her mind back to the nightmare she had the night she decided to leave the farm.

She feels the branches of the tree’s closely down around her, and her breath picks up.

She urges Japan forward anyways, trying to ignore his reins trembling in her hands.

By the time she catches up to Anya and Antony, the screams are louder.

“Please god, help! They’re right behind us!”

They were closer to the source than they had thought. Within moments the three of them burst into a clearing on the path, and they can see two people running from the other side, a middle aged woman and a young boy, couldn’t be older than fifteen. Close behind them are a pair of Runners, hot on their heels. 

Before Dina even has her handgun out of it’s holster, Anya has pulled back on Pepper’s reigns, flung her rifle down, shouldered it, and blown a hole through the chest of the runner chasing the boy. It hits the ground with a wet thud. 

Antony has put the other one down less than a second later. 

Dina’s gun is still shaking in her hand as she scans the area for other threats. Anya and Antony quickly do the same, Antony dismounting and walking around, his rifle ready, before they all lower their weapons.

The pair who were being chased are over embracing each other when Dina and Anya ride up to them, Antony walking the perimeter still.

“Jacky, are you alright?! Were you bit? Did it get you?”, the woman says in a rushed voice, lifting the boys sleeves, his pant legs, checking him all over.

“Ma, I’m fine, I’m fine.” He says, pushing her hands away.

The woman looks over to Dina and Anya, and in the same rushed voice, “Thank god. Thank god you were here. Not everyone would have come. You saved our lives. You saved my boy’s life.”

Dina smiles down at them, and Anya says, “Just doing our job. We’re on patrol and heard you. It was the right thing to do.”

The boy looks at his mother and then up to them, “On patrol?”

Antony makes his way over to the felled Runners, and starts checking their bodies. Part of the training.

Anya smiles her big friendly smile at the pair, “Yeah bud, we live in a big settlement close to here called Jackson. Groups of us go out on patrol, to help keep it safe. You can come back with us if you want.”

The mother and son share a glance, the mother saying to him in a tone Dina doesn’t understand, “Groups of them?”

Antony calls over, lifting a chain connected to one of the Runners legs. “You guys ever seen anything like this before?”

The boy sighs, moaning to himself, 

“Shit”, and raises his hand, making a twirling motion with his fingers.

Dina eyes go wide, and she cries, “Wait, guys they’r-”

A shot rings out, and Dina’s vision goes red as some sort of hot liquid splatters violently across her face. Her ears are ringing, and she wipes her eyes just in time to look over as Anya slumps off of Pepper, a wet crimson hole where the left side of her head used to be. 

Antony is on his feet, swiveling with his rifle, calling to Dina, when three more shots pierce the air, one taking out his right leg, another hitting him high in the chest. 

Japan pulls his head up in front of Dina in shock, and he makes a sickening noise as the third shot goes straight into his skull, sending him crashing to the ground before Dina can react, landing on top of her leg, trapping her. 

Pepper and Antony Jr. screech and take off in opposite directions, and she hears voices yelling “Should we go after them?!” and the boy saying “Just let ‘em go”.

She can hear footsteps coming out of the woods, and she rushes to point her gun in their direction when the boy comes up over Japan’s lifeless body and steps on her wrist, bending down to take the gun from her struggling fingers. 

Over the boy chuckling to himself at his new found prize while he walks over to pick up her fallen rifle as well, she can hear Antony gasping for breath, choking on his own blood.

“Oop, this one’s still kickin”, she hears someone say over in the direction where Antony had fallen. She hears rustling in the grass, a bit of a struggle, two more shots pop off, and nothing else.

“Oh I love that chained up Runner gag… works almost every time,” some new male voice says.

“Yeah, well I fuckin’ hate it”, the boy says walking quickly over to Anya’s body and picking it over too. “Next time, you can be the bait.”

The man laughs, “Nah kid, always works better with the young ones and the ladies. Gets those bleedin’ hearts all worked into a lather.”

“We need to get movin’, now.” The woman says, urgency in her voice.

A different male voice, “What, why? I thought we were going to stick around here?”

The boy cuts in, “She’s fuckin’ right, they said they’re from a big settlement. That there’s lots of patrols. We don’t know if one of ‘em heard all that shootin’. They might be headed this way now.”

Dina knows no one did. The patrols are too spread out, especially now. No one is coming. 

She starts struggling to get out from underneath Japan. Her leg is definitely injured, but she doesn’t think anything is broken. If she can just sneak away while they’re not paying attention.

“ _Wooo-eee_. What do we have here”, says an enormous man walking over to where Dina is trying to make her escape, his gut spilling out of his shirt, a rifle resting casually against his shoulder. 

Dina stops moving, looking up at him in revulsion.

“He’s right, you know. There’s already people headed this way,” she tries to sound confident, brazen. “We sent for help when we heard screaming.”

The man laughs, as the others begin to spread out, searching the ground for anything useful, the boy coming up beside him, “That so? You think that’s true, Jacky? ”

The boy just shrugs, festooned in her dead friends guns.

The man squats in front of Dina. 

“I don’t think there’s anyone coming for you sweetheart. It’s just you and me out here…”, he reaches out and brushes a fallen strand of hair away from her face. “... you like the sound of that?”

She recoils at his touch, and spits in his face, “I’ve seen fucking Bloaters in better shape than you.”

He just laughs, wiping the spit from his cheek and rubbing it on the boys shirt, who jumps away in disgust, “Sweetheart, you’d be lucky to have what I could give you”

Dina leans up on one elbow, bringing her face close to his, and intones in a breathy voice,

“I’d rather _fuck_ the Bloater.”

As she says it, she swings her other arm forward, bringing her hunting knife out of its sheath on her back, and slices him across the face, leaving a deep cut running from the bottom of his cheek, across his nose, and up to his hairline. 

She fights to get out from under Japan while he recovers, but he’s quicker to come back than she had expected. 

“You fucking bitch!” he yells, and brings his rifle down, the corner of the stock cracking hard against her skull, making her head snap back against the ground, and her vision flash white and then go blurry.

She tries to keep moving but it’s like she’s underwater, like everything she does is in slow motion. She can feel blood trickling down her forehead into her eyes, and she tries to blink it away, but it just gets trapped in her eyelashes.

She’s faintly aware of the world continuing on around her, sounds and voices having no real source.

“Should we kill her?”

“Fuck yeah we should! Look what she did to my face.”

“Might be useful having another woman around?”

“Not worth the risk”

“Jacky’s right, someones more likely to come looking for someone missing than if they find a pile of corpses.”

“Awful waste, if you ask me, just look at her.”

“Look at my fucking face!”

“You were never that handsome anyhow.”

“Shut the fuck up Jacky!”

“Wait, anyone seen Roger?”

“Roger!?”

“Did you hear something?”

“What was that?”

“Jacky, go check it out”

“You fucking check it out!”

“Boy...”

“Fucking fine”

“Jacky”

“Hey Jacky”

“Jacky… where’d you go?”

“Jacky? JACKY?”

A sound like a tree limb snapping, followed by a low thump, like something hitting the ground. It could have been a gunshot, but Dina can’t make it out.

“WHO’S OUT THERE?!”

Dina looks up, in her delirium thinking a branch is about to fall on her, but see’s the large man standing over her with a gun pointed down at her head, and is certain, through the fog, that this is where she dies.

“I’LL KILL HER!”, she can hear the man shouting in a panic, his words clear from this close, but still somehow she’s hearing them from miles away. 

Somewhere, deep in her mind, she finds a kind of peace in knowing she’s about to die. Maybe it’s better this way. She hasn’t really been here in a long time. 

Especially since Ellie died. 

JJ will miss her, and god, wherever she goes next, if there is anywhere next, she’ll miss him. But so many children grow up in this world without their parents. He’ll have Robin and Mitchell. He’ll have Maria. He’ll have Jackson. They’ll teach him. They’ll show him how to live well. 

They’ll love him.

They’ll love...

Tears start to form in her eyes as she thinks of her son who she’ll never see again. Who’ll never see her again. Had she even kissed him goodbye this morning? She’s sure she had…

She puts a shaky hand to her shirt pocket, feeling the outline of the familiar photograph in it one last time.

The sound of another treelimb snaps loud and echoes off into the distance, and the man falls to the ground next her, his face nothing but a red mess.

As she struggles to make sense of what’s happening, she can feel the blackness taking her, creeping in from the edges of her vision, and she’s sure he must have shot her, though she never felt it.

Before it takes over, another figure comes rushing towards her, kneels down, and cradles her head in its hands, wiping the blood from her face, screaming her name, and Dina is terrified. 

She wants to scream, but the sound won’t come out of her lungs, her blood running cold through her veins.

As she falls unconscious, her last feeling is of fear.

Dina had never believed in ghosts before that moment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> RIP Antony and Anya. We barely knew ye.
> 
> Find me on [Tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/whiskeytango8686) . Send a writing prompt for this series if you'd like, maybe I'll run with it.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stars over the mountains. A confusing night.
> 
> A starless sky. A long way home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just have to say again, thank you to everyone who is reading, commenting, kudos... ing. It truly makes my day, and in a way I don't really want to examine about myself, really inspires me to keep writing.
> 
> Just a quick warning, even though it's in the tags: there's some violence in this chapter. I know there was in the last one too, but just thought I'd put it out there.

The spring air was cool as she walked home, hands in the pockets of her jeans, her pace slow and happy.

The sun had gone down a while ago, and her mind still lingered on standing under a porch light, saying their goodbyes, sharing a slow kiss. 

“Girlfriend”

The term still seemed strange to her. Foreign. Like it didn’t belong in her mouth. Like it was someone else’s to use.

Her lips crept up as she turned the word over in her mind, examining it from different angles, seeing how it fit into her idea of herself. 

She found she kind of liked it.

Cat had called Ellie her girlfriend, and she kind of liked it.

She turns down a different street than the one that will take her to her little house behind Joel’s. She has to tell someone. 

There’s only one person she wants to know right at this moment.

Ellie makes her way to the block of houses used as group homes for kids in Jackson without parents, jogging up the steps of the familiar navy blue one she’s been to so many times over the past years. She knocks on the door, all nervous energy.

“-Hannah shut the fuck up, I’m getting it, ok? OKAY?!!”, she hears from somewhere inside. 

Ellie grins to herself. Dina’s such a charmer.

Dina swings the door open, and her face bursts into a huge smile.

“Ellie! I thought you had to hang out with Cat tonight?”, she says so fast it all sounds like one word, pulling Ellie into a warm hug.

Ellie smiles back, hugging her excitedly, “Actually… I already did.”

Dina leans back, some strange expression playing across her face. “Oh, cool. Do you want to come in? We just made some popcorn on the stove. I think _Hannah!_ ”, she yells the name back into the house, as she starts to walk back inside, expecting Ellie to follow, “only burned like half of it.”

“Uh, I do… but…”, Ellie just wants to get to the news, “I can’t. I’ve got group patrol in the morning. I can’t sleep in again.” 

Dina leans back out of the doorway, holding on to the opposing frames with either hand, her face coming dangerously close to Ellie’s, and she says breathily, “It’s not like I was offering to keep you up all night, Williams.”

Ellie can feel her body quake as a shiver runs up her spine just at the thought of what Dina implies. 

Dina always knows how to get a rise out of her. Like she’ll take any opportunity she can to do it. Despite what happened earlier with Cat, something deep inside of Ellie urges her to just lean in and... 

Ellie has to look away from her for a moment, hoping the heat in her cheeks isn’t showing through to her skin. 

No, she’s there for a reason, damnit.

“Well, that’s good, because _apparently_... Cat and I are _girlfriends_!”, she turns back to Dina with a huge smile as she says The Word.

She’s surprised to see Dina isn’t ecstatic, busting paper crowns from out of thin air, or at the very least rushing in to hug her a second time.

No, Dina’s expression is neutral. Like she’d just heard the weather was going to be “alright” or that Jesse’s parents wanted to have game night again. 

“That’s great”, she replies, a few seconds too late for it to seem authentic.

Ellie looks at her, confused. It _was_ great, wasn’t it? 

“Ye..yeah… I was talking to Jesse during stable cleaning and he told me she had called me her girlfriend, so I talked with her-”

“Mmmhmm, that’s great. I’m happy for you. Didn’t you say you had to go?”, Dina says quickly, crossing her arms, looking guarded all of a sudden.

What’s going on? Dina never wants Ellie to go. Dina doesn’t want Ellie to go even when it’s just Dina, Ellie, and Jesse, and Jesse is CLEARLY trying to get Ellie to give them some alone time.

Dina even seems mad at her. Dina’s never gotten mad at her.

Ellie doesn’t like the feeling. 

“Um… yeah, I guess”, she takes a step down, not knowing how to handle the situation except to leave. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”

Dina just nods dismissively, “Probably, yeah.”

Ellie swallows, still struggling to understand what she did wrong. She just wanted to... 

“Okay… good night, Dina.”

“Goodnight”. Dina shuts the door quickly. Ellie doesn’t hear her move away from it.

Ellie walks home, her mind muddled between the euphoria she was feeling when she left Cat’s and the confusion of when she left Dina’s.

She reaches her and Joel’s paired houses, and is about to walk through her door when she hears a voice calling out from a location she can’t place,

“Tha’ you, kiddo?”

She looks around, not seeing Joel on the back porch or in any of the windows.

“Where are you?”, she calls back.

“Up here”

She draws her eyes up, finding him looking down on her from the roof of his house. Her breath catches, seeing him practically leaning over the edge.

“Holy shit, old man, what are you doing up there? Is tonight the night? Finally ready to just end it all?”, she yells up to him.

He chuckles in his rumbly Joel way, “If I did jump, I’d aim for yer house.”

They share the silence a second, both standing in the open air.

“Why dun you come on up? Keep an old man comp’ny fer a bit?”, he says, disappearing further onto the roof, not seeming to entertain no as an answer. 

“Is it even safe?”, she calls out.

Distantly, he yells back, “Probably not.”

She sighs, wanting to just go to bed, equal parts so she can think about the events of the evening and to forget about them, but instead finds herself climbing the ladder set against the side of the house, until she’s up on the slanted roof with Joel.

She finds him in the middle of the expanse, a thermos standing next to him, and he’s lying down, one knee cocked up, a hand behind his head. When she carefully takes up a similar position beside him, he turns and looks into the night sky.

“The hell are you doing up here, anyways?”, she asks, settling in.

He breathes deep, “Nice night. Git tired of bein’ inside sometimes.”

She nods, understanding the feeling. After being out on the road for so long, she had longed desperately to never sleep outside again. Then once she was sleeping in a bed every night, she began to feel boxed in, like the ceiling was too close. 

She looks out over the town, out to the dark line of the horizon, split between the sky and the mountains. It really was beautiful here. 

“That coffee?”, she says, breaking the quiet between them after some long moments.

He lets out a long sigh. “Nope. It's…uh.. ‘herbal tea’... “, he pauses and glances at her a second before looking back up and continuing, “... Esther says it’s ‘good’ fer me.”

He adds under his breath, “ain’t been able to find any lately, anyhow…”

Ellie snorts, laughing into her closed mouth. “Oh yeah? She got you on an exercise plan too? Have you eating your vegetables?”

Joel just smiles. “Very funny, comin’ from such a bean pole.”

Ellie laughs a bit. He’s right, she was still skinny, though her arms had become corded with lean muscle, wiry and strong. She could fight with the best of them now, and Joel knew it. She thought it made him proud.

They go back to just staring up at that sky together.

After a while, Joel points up, moving his hand in a line, and asks.

“Wha’s tha’ one?”

Ellie moves her head to get behind his hand to see from it’s point of view, and says “Thaaat’s… Hydra. It’s actually the largest constellation out of all of them…”

Joel turns and looks at her while she’s talking, fascination playing across his face, but not at the size of the constellation.

“... It has like almost three hundred stars in it. You can only see it from January to May though.”

Joel smiles his crooked smile at her, not paying any attention to the stars anymore.

“Ain’t tha’ somethin’.”, he says.

She looks at him and smiles, before lying back and looking up again. “Yeah… it is.”

She wants to tell him about her night. About what happened with Dina. Despite him not being the “loquacious type” (she’d heard it in a movie once), he might have something comforting to say about friendship. 

Joel knew about friends, right? He’d had those before?

A part of her ached to tell him about Cat, but she was so scared. She’d never told him that she liked girls before, it always seeming like something she should keep from him for some reason. 

What if he got angry? What if he told her that wasn’t “right”, and he pushed her away? 

That they were done.

She could never imagine Joel saying something like that to her, not after everything they’d been through, but the thought of him not being a part of her life wasn’t something she could handle, so she just… didn’t say anything about it. 

She let it rest, even though it wanted to be said.

This, what they had, was good enough for now, she thought. It would do.

She’d tell him one day.

They laid on the roof, sharing disgusting herbal tea, Ellie reciting facts about constellations that he would point out, quizzing each other on new puns they had learned, Joel telling her small bits about his life before they met.

The next morning, Ellie slept in and was late for group patrol. She didn’t feel as guilty as she thought she would.

\----------

She wakes up in the dark.

She’s laying on her back, staring into the night sky, but she can’t see any stars. 

Just… clouds? 

Smoke? She can’t tell. 

It smells like burning wood and salt.

She can taste iron in her mouth. 

She’s faintly aware of the glow of a fire somewhere far behind where her head lays.

Water licks her feet.

She closes her eyes, and asks through parched lips:

“Can you see the stars, Joel?”

There’s no reply.

\----------

She shoots up, pain shocking her from sleep.

A white bird pecks at the barely stitched hole in her side. 

She screams, rage and agony blinding her.

She grabs the bird before it can fly away and breaks its neck, scarcely registering that she had done it.

She doubles back over on her other side, clutching at the wound, fresh blood streaming out of it. 

Her fingers pulsate under the makeshift bandage she made from a scrap of her shirt, from the raw tore nubs part way up them to the tips of the empty space where they used to end.

She gets to her knees, and looks around her. 

The structure she fought her way through is a smoldering ruin. The remains still smoking. 

Over the ridge, she can see The Pillars, bodies still hanging from them. 

The previous day comes back to her, and she heaves, her body trying to expel something, anything. 

Everything.

Nothing comes out.

She pulls her shirt up gingerly and looks at her wound. It’s getting worse. Stitches have come out. She has to do something about it.

She pads the sand for her switchblade, her mother’s gift to her that has saved her life and taken so many others. She remembers it was knocked into the water and was probably washed away with the waves. 

Another precious thing lost to her forever.

She slowly gets to her feet, and drags herself over to the post the boat is tied to, slowly untying the knot, careful not to touch the rope with the ruins of her fingers. 

She climbs into the boat, pulls on the motor cord, and steers it away from that horrible place.

\----------

She’s huddled in the little alcove she had found close to Abby’s sailboat. 

She had gone back there, certain there had been some medical supplies inside, but clearly someone else had been there first. There was blood on the floor, and it looked like anything useful had been taken.

She had rederessed her wounds in fresh scraps off of the sheet from the bed in the boat, dragged herself back over to that spot, climbed into one of the sleeping bags for warmth as her temperature dropped, and waited. 

For what, she wasn’t sure. 

Death seemed like the most likely candidate at this point. 

She was fairly certain her injury from the tree was infected. She felt cold inside but her face was burning to the touch. The wound was raw and already starting to turn a color that made her ill.

_“I don’t plan on dying”_

She wished Dina and Potato were here with her, to whisper things to her. 

To press a damp cloth against her fiery forehead, and laugh at her for having been such an idiot.

To hold her hand as she slipped away.

She didn’t want to die alone.

She didn’t want to die without Dina.

\----------

Voices. 

How long has she been here?

Voices.

Where? 

She looks out from her spot, down the beach. 

She thinks it’s almost night, the sky looks like it’s on fire.

It’s hard to make out anything. She thinks delirium is taking over.

A large group comes into view, far down the sands.

Danger.

They’re pulling what look like carts and wagons, many of them riding horses, some of them on foot.

Tommy had mentioned caravans. Peaceful, trading caravans.

It’s her only chance.

She suddenly remembers the bite on her hand.

If they see it they might not help her. Might kill her themselves.

She could say a person bit her? 

She can barely speak, and what if they don’t believe her?

She could just cover it up, but what if she passes out again and they look at her wounds?

She looks around in a panic.

There has to be something, anything. 

The lantern.

Oh no, the lantern.

She has to do this fast.

Oh fuck. Oh fuck.

_Fuck._

She wraps the lantern in both of the sleeping bags, smashes it as quietly as she can against the rocks, and takes out one of the biggest shards with trembling hands. 

She had briefly considered heating the lantern and burning the wound against the glass, but she couldn’t risk it being too superficial. 

This had to pass scrutiny.

She puts the strap of the machine gun she took off one of the Rattlers into her mouth, bites down hard, places her hand flat against her thigh, and puts the point of the glass shard against her skin until it’s pressing an indent in .

Oh fuck. 

Oh fuck.

Just do it. Just do it.

_Just fucking do it._

She tears the glass through her skin, holding back a scream, grunting into the strap in her mouth. She pulls the shard out and looks down at her hand, inspecting it. Blood seeps out, but it’s no longer recognizable as a bite. 

Now the other side.

She turns her hand over, placing it on her leg again, the blood pooling into her already blood soaked jeans, and starts crying. 

She pounds her fist in the sand, willing herself to stop.

She doesn’t have time for this. 

In a split second, she slices across the other set of teeth marks.

The strap almost falls from her mouth as she wails into it. 

She grips her wrist, and brings her hand to her face, to look at what she’s done to herself.

No worse than a chemical burn she decides, as she pushes herself to her feet.

Her head immediately starts spinning, and she nearly falls over again, having to balance herself against the wall of the alcove.

She grabs the strap of her bag and starts dragging, stumbling towards the caravan, who are walking in the direction of the sailboat.

“He.. help..”, she tries to yell, but it comes out as barely a croak, her throat dry and her tongue barely working.

She makes it another few yards before collapsing to her knees, and gasping out one solid “ _Help… me._ ”

Several of the traders turn and look her way. A few of them seem to be talking among themselves, considering what to do, but two of them break away and start running over to her.

She falls over into the sand.

She blacks out just as they reach her.

\----------

She can feel that she’s moving.

She thinks she’s being carried. 

It feels like she’s floating.

“These stitches are horrible, they need to be taken out and re-done.”

She’s set down on something. 

“Fine, but that’s all we can do.”

“Jorge, you can’t be serious? Look at her! Look at that wound! She's going to die just from the fever if we don’t give her some medicine!”

“Antibiotics? For an outsider? Are you fucking crazy?”

“Jorge!”

“Even if we _did_ give them to her, we barely have any left! They’d keep her alive _maybe_ but we don’t have enough on us, we’d have to take her all the way to the campsite. I’m not giving a stranger the meds we have on us for free and bringing them into one of our camps! Fuck _that!_ ”

“So trade her for them and the ride. Take some of her guns. That’s fair, isn’t it?”

She looks around her but can’t really see. Her vision is hazy and she feels like her body is on fire.

“... Fine. You’ll stand as her proxy and answer for it if she ever wakes up. We’ll take her guns for the medicine. It’s a trade?”

“And more back at camp?”

“Fine. It’s a trade?

“It’s a-”

She reaches out as fast as she’s able, though she doesn’t know towards what.

“Nah.. nah… tha… revolv…”, she says weakly, barely able to get any intelligible words out.

A hand reaches out and touches her arm, slowly lowering it back onto whatever surface she’s laying on.

“Not her revolver. It’s a trade?”

There’s a long pause.

“It’s a trade?”

“It’s a trade.”

She can hear some shuffling and unpacking of objects, a pinch along the hot wound at her side as a needle slips in and out, and then she feels a cool wet cloth being pressed against her forehead, then her cheeks, and finally against her lips. 

She sucks at it, trying to get all of the liquid out.

The voice that saved Joel’s revolver says to her “I don’t know what you got yourself into, but it sure was stupid if it ended up with you like this.”

“Yuh… ih… was… “, she groans, as the cloth comes back to her forehead, feeling like it’s been wet again.

“Suh… suh-reh...Dee...na… I love… you”, she whispers inaudibly as she slips away again.

\----------

Ellie blinks her eyes open, and looks around her, trying to figure out if her surroundings are real or a dream. She feels like she’s lost the ability to tell the difference. Like she’s been dreaming for her entire life.

Some horrible dreams. Dreams that felt like they would swallow her up and she would fall down into them until she was gone forever.

Some dreams… some dreams she would have gladly stayed in. Even if just for another second.

She doesn’t think she’s dreaming now though.

She’s laying on a foam mat. She can feel it’s soft give under her back and her fingers as she presses down on it with her good hand. It feels real.

She’s inside of a nylon tent, the side’s flapping quietly against a soft breeze that she can feel on her face, coming in through the mesh of a portion that’s been zipped down. That feel’s real too. 

She sits up and can feel a dull pain clawing at her right side. She lifts her shirt and finds bandages wrapped around her torso. Definitely real.

There’s a pull on her left arm that she doesn’t recognize, turning to see a needle going into her, lined through to a bag of clear liquid suspended from the ceiling of the tent. She winces as she pulls the needle out, and lets the line hang.

Ellie exits the tent, and immediately has to guard her eyes against the brightness, the sun coming down harshly. Where is she? The air is dry as it blows lazily around her, gusting through mostly bare trees.

All around her are other tents. People she doesn’t recognize. Carts and wagons assembled from old car parts and trailers. Horses. Caravan traders. 

Peaceful people. 

Children run around. Adults walk among the carts. She can make out guns in waistbands, rifles slung around shoulders. 

Not completely safe then.

“I figured you weren’t going to die…”

She turns her head to the voice coming up beside her.

“... but I was beginning to wonder if you’d ever really wake up.”

The woman speaking to her is sitting in a fold out chair in front of a tent next to the one Ellie came out of. She looks middle aged, but her skin appears much older, tanned and leathery, like she spends every waking moment out in the sun. She has short red hair, and bright blue eyes.

“How did…” Ellie starts, not sure of which question to start with. “How long was I out?” 

The woman squints at Ellie, and pats a chair next to her. “Stop standing in front of the sun, I can barely you.”

Ellie breathes in and looks around, then walks over and slowly lowers herself into the chair, waiting for the woman to answer her question.

The woman turns to her and gives her a straight, close lipped smile. “Thats better… Adelaide.”, she offers, extending her hand out.

Ellie reaches out tentatively and shakes it

“Ellie.”

Adelaide groans, looking annoyed, “Shit, I just lost a bet… shoulda guessed you weren’t saying your own in your sleep.” 

Getting over her annoyance, she finally answers, “Well ‘Ellie’, I’d say… you were in and out for over three weeks? Actually, I suppose almost a month.”

The news hits Ellie like a wrecking ball, and she leans back in the chair, breathing hard. “Three weeks…almost a month… that long?”

“Well… we’re not exactly a hospital around her, took a bit to find the right stuff for you”, the woman says, her hand waving along the campsite.

Ellie feels like she’s going to start hyperventilating. 

It’d taken a little over two months just to get to Santa Barbara, with the necessary emergency detours and being holed up because of the horde that passed by her. Now she’s lost at least another one? She didn’t even know how long she was in and out of consciousness before she saw the caravan. 

She didn’t even know where she was now.

Adelaide is still talking to her, “... wasn’t exactly a party cleaning you up, either. Washing your clothes when you-”

She leans forward again, making her side ache. Better get used to that. “Where are we?”

Please say North of Santa Barbara.

 _Please_ say somewhere North.

Adelaide looks around the sky like she’s getting her bearings, like she doesn’t already know the answer.

“Right now, a little ways into Mexico. Moved around with you a couple times. We don’t stay in one place for long.”

Ellie puts her hands around the sides of her head, gripping her hair, her elbows on her knees, and rocks back and forth slightly. 

“Fuck… fuck, fuck _fuck!_ ”

Her pulse is pounding in her ears, in her temples, in her side. She feels like she’s going to throw up.

“Hey, hey what’s the matter? You’re alive, isn’t that what counts?”, Adelaide says, trying to reassure her. 

Ellie stands up, rolling back on her heels unsteadily, and starts heading back to her tent to check for her backpack, panic across her face.

“I have… I have to go… I have to get back.”

Dina. JJ.

Three months already. Over that. 

Oh god. 

Adelaide follows her, “I’m not sure you’re ready to be going anywhere just yet.”

Ellie is already inside the tent, picking up her backpack, looking around for anything else of hers. She feels dizzy from the exertion, her eyes heavy.

“Y-you don’t… you don’t understand… I have to…”.

Before she can finish her vision goes hazy and she passes out, sprawling across the mat.

\----------

She wakes up to Adelaide sitting in the tent with her, reading a small paperback book. 

The older woman glances at her as she stirs, then goes back to reading.

“I’ve read this one… god, probably ten times now. Still cry when Tommy ‘completes’. Every time.”

Ellie tries to read the title, but the cover is torn. She can only make out the words “Me Go” and the author, some foreign sounding name she doesn’t think she could pronounce right the first time if she said it out loud.

“Why do you keep reading it, if it makes you sad?” Ellie says as she forces herself up onto her elbows, looking outside the open flap. It looks like it’s still day. Or maybe it’s the next day.

Adelaide flips the book down over her knees, holding it between her thumb and two fingers, and considers the question.

“I guess… just to remember what it felt like the first time I read it, before the outbreak.”

Ellie nods, and starts, “Look, I appreciate everythi-”

“You traded for it, fair. All those guns you had on you. Nothing’s more valuable for trading than guns.” She says, looking a little sad at that, “We’re not keeping you here, girl. You can leave if you need to. I think most would prefer you would.”, Adelaide smiles at her. “Just be ready.”

She’s fairly certain she’s not, but Ellie doesn’t have a choice, she has to start moving. She reaches for her pack, getting to her feet.

“Why… why did you do all this for me? You could have just took my shit and left me on that beach.”

Adelaide stands and closes her books, looking her in the eyes, 

“Now how would I live with myself if I had done that?”, she turns and walks out of the tent, and Ellie follows.

\----------

Ellie stands outside of Salt Lake City for the third time, looking out over that place where she felt like her life had ended and a different version of it had begun. 

She didn’t mean to come here at all. She had meant to keep going. She’d already taken so much time.

Two months have passed since she left Adelaide and the Caravan Traders. Turns out they had been “a little ways” farther into Mexico than Adelaide had made it sound, and the going had not been easy. 

Though her injuries had been treated fairly well given the circumstances and were healing better than Ellie expected, the pain of some of them was still very much there in the beginning. It made traveling, especially through the desert, very difficult. She had to fight through it the first week, nearly blacking out once while trying to avoid some Clickers when she tripped and fell on a rock that slammed into her side.

Her fingers had closed up, but were still an angry red around the stumps. She didn’t understand that. It looked almost like they weren’t healing at all, or like she had a horrible infection, but they didn’t have a smell. She could move them. They weren’t overly painful to the touch. She almost thought it was in her head.

When she left, Adelaide had given her a canteen of water, some food and the remainder of the medicine, a flip knife, a map of the South West United States, and finally placed Joel’s revolver back into her hand, saying that it had seemed really important to her, though she didn’t remember ever saying anything about it.

The woman had smiled at her, and said she hoped she made it back to Dina. She didn’t remember saying anything about Dina either, but turned around headed on her way without asking how she knew.

She had made her way slowly up through Mexico, and despite the lack of speed afforded by her injuries, thought things were going well enough until she reached the border, and found it fenced off, with a huge detachment of FEDRA soldiers guarding it. 

She almost laughed when she had seen it. All the threats she had encountered and heard about inside the country. The Infected. The Wolves. The Scars. David’s group of cannibals. Those disgusting killers in Pittsburgh. The Fireflys. The Rattlers. The group in New Mexico that Dina had told her about that took multiple wives. Countless others she hoped to never see... and FEDRA was putting all of this effort into… what? 

Making sure some Mexican people didn’t come in?

What a fucking joke.

She had to take two extra days to head east and find a weak spot that she could cross at, waiting until she was certain a patrol wouldn’t catch her.

As she went north, she seemed to stumble from one roadblock to the next. Hordes were everywhere it seemed, like they migrated this direction during this time of year. Gangs of hunters seemed to litter the landscape. She lost time day after day maneuvering around one threat after another.

Every day she thinks about her family, back home. If she can even still call it that. Dina had told her she wouldn’t wait for her. She couldn’t blame her if she hadn’t. It had been so much time already, but that doesn’t stop her from hoping. 

Hoping that she’ll come back and JJ will be playing on the floor, Dina will be sitting at the table still trying to make that radio play, and she’ll walk in. 

They’ll cry. They’ll hold each other. She’ll say she’s sorry and that she never should have left. Dina will kiss her and punch her chest and make her promise to never do this to her again.

She knows that won’t be what’s waiting. 

But she hopes.

The longer her trek took, the more what she had done began to weigh on her, like each passing second added a little bit more weight, until she began to feel like she was every bit as beaten down by her decisions as she was when she thought she was going to die on the floor of that theater in Seattle, coughing up her own blood.

Had she made the right choice, not killing Abby? Not just holding her under the waves and squeezing her hands tighter and tighter until she could feel the life leave Abbys struggling body? 

A part of her wishes she had. That she had just kept choking her. Kept holding her under. A little hateful voice inside screaming at her, telling her she betrayed Joel, letting his killer walk free to live out her days in whatever way she wanted.

But in her heart, she knew. 

She knew the moment her fingers had let go of Abby’s neck.

It wasn’t what he would have wanted for her.

He would have wanted her to live. To be whole. 

_“No matter what, ya keep findin’ somethin' ta fight for.”_

He would have wanted her to fight for something worth fighting for.

But she had done such things to get to that understanding. She had done such terrible things. Things that made it feel like there was poison running through her veins, threatening to corrupt whatever… whoever she touched.

But she still longed to touch…

Time slipped by and she kept onward, making it eventually to familiar territory, and she found herself heading to that city, until she was standing at a distance, looking out at it. 

Seeing it now, she realized that same pull, the longing she once had for the answers it held, was gone. Had been emptied from her somewhere along the way. There was nothing for her here. For better or worse, Joel had taken any answers this place could have ever provided.

Her answers were somewhere else now. 

Whenever she thinks of where to search for them, she only thinks of Dina. 

She needs to move along.

The night she leaves Salt Lake City, she finds herself sketching Joel, sitting on his porch, playing guitar. It’s the first time she's been able to draw his eyes since he died. 

She doesn’t know why.

\----------

She has to force air back into her lungs as she leaves the farm house.

For all the small bits of peace she found in the memory of her and Joel on his porch for the last time that plucking uselessly at her old guitar had brought her, finding the house empty had opened a thousand fractures inside her heart. 

_"She'd be lucky ta have ya."_

Wrong again, old man. 

She knew it was a possibility. Dina was almost always true to her word.

But she had dreamed selfishly that Dina’s love would have been stronger than hers was. That she would have held onto Ellie even when Ellie wasn’t capable of holding onto their family. 

When she wasn’t capable of holding onto herself.

She kept hoping to find something in the house, some message for her telling her to come back to them. Maybe Olly sitting out on the tractor, waiting to be brought back to JJ. A note saying they were waiting for her in Jackson and had only moved back for safety, even the imagining of which made Ellie almost double over with guilt and shame. 

Something, anything. 

All there was were her things shoved into her room, like she’d been locked away, never to be looked at again. A memory not worth remembering. 

She didn’t even bother looking through the boxes before she left. 

She had noticed a few of the pieces she had done missing, but thought Dina had probably just torn them to shreds or set them on fire. 

Why not?

Ellie fucking deserved it.

In the bedroom there was nothing but one of Ellie’s old jackets hanging on a hook by the closet and a set of sheets lying on the bed. Ellie imagined Dina had left them there to say:

“Stay here. Don’t ever come back.”

The kind thing to do would be to obey that wish.

The strong thing.

Ellie didn’t have any strength left.

She found herself walking quickly down the path heading to Jackson. 

It had been nearly six months since she’d left. She had traded game she had caught with another settlement a couple hundred miles from Jackson for new clothes, and a place to get cleaned up one day. Wash. Get her hair cut. She had wanted to look presentable for Dina and JJ. 

Now she didn’t even think they would see her.

She thought she would just slip in, asking whoever was at the gates to be discrete about her return, and just make sure they were there. That they were safe. Leave again without them ever knowing, and let them live their lives.

She wondered how big their Potato was now. He must be huge. He was already getting so big when she had left.

Tears start to come to Ellie’s eyes that she rubs away with her knuckles. She’s not going to cry. She doesn’t deserve to.

Maybe Dina will have found someone else. Everyone loved being around her. Ellie had always had a hard time believing Dina had wanted to be with her in the first place. Had chosen her.

She deserves to be happy. She deserves to find…

The tears were coming then whether Ellie chose to allow them or not.

She was about a half mile from the fork when she heard screaming, followed quickly by a pair of gunshots.

The fuck is going on?

There are never infected out here, and the patrols never come down this fork, at least they didn’t when she lived here. 

She picks up the pace, turning into a heavy jog, when the silence in the woods is cut again by another gunshot, and a man yelling briefly, followed by three more shots. She doesn’t hear the tell tale sounds of any infected, the clicking and screeching. 

These are people shooting at each other.

Ellie starts running as fast as her legs will carry her.

Out of the brush, a riderless horse comes galloping in her direction, rising up on his hind legs in front of her when it sees her.

She holds her hands up, trying to calm it down,

“Whoa, whoa, easy!”, she says as quietly as she can while still trying to get through to the startled creature. 

It comes back down onto all fours and starts pacing in front of her, blowing air out of its nose in distress. Ellie slowly takes its reins and checks its flanks for what she’s already sure will be there. 

The “J” brand, signifying it as a horse of a member of the Jackson patrol. It’s marred with blood covering it’s left side, but she doesn’t see any wounds on the horse. 

She knows it’s rider isn’t still fighting out there.

Two more shots echo through the tree’s.

She ties the horse up to a strong enough looking limb, takes Joel’s revolver out of her pack, her knife from her pocket, and heads in the direction of the gunfire.

She creeps through bushes until she comes to a clearing, finding a group of four in it spreading out. She can make out two bodies lying on the ground. 

Two of the group are over by a felled horse, one of them squatting beside it. It looks like there’s someone trapped under the dead animal.

That horse, it looks like…

No.

_No._

It can’t.

It fucking isn’t.

Fucking _no._

Her chest starts rising and falling in quick succession, air pumping in and out of her nose. Her eyes are wild. 

She sees the squatting man recoil, grab his face and then slam his rifle down behind the horse she is trying to deny is Japan with a cracking noise that turns her stomach. 

All of the rage she thought she had let go of on that beach comes rushing back, and she feels like she has her knife at that boy with the scars throat again. 

Like there's nothing she won't do.

There is nothing she won’t do.

Ellie’s mind goes blank and she’s already a foot step into the clearing, about to just start shooting when one of the men rounds the other side of the bush she’s behind, dumbly looking around, not expecting to find anything there. 

Certainly not The Angriest Girl in the World.

He’s about to call out when she drops her gun, grabs his wrist and slams her knife into his throat, twisting his body around into a hug, and pulling him behind the bush. 

His life runs out all over her hand, and his eyes roll into the back of his head as she pulls out the knife. She hasn’t killed anyone except Infected that got in her way since Santa Barbara, and had never wanted to kill anyone again.

But Dina is over there.

And she’ll kill anyone to get her.

She’ll kill everyone to get her.

She retrieves the revolver and puts it in the back of her pants, quickly makes her way around to a new spot, staying low, ducking behind small trees and tall grass.

She can hear them talking to each other, and she reaches out and grabs a stone on the ground just when they start calling a name that she doesn’t give a fuck about.

She tosses the stone some distance away from her, making sure to hit a tree, the noise clicking loudly into the clearing.

The youngest looking member of the group, covered in guns, is coerced into checking out the noise, and she waits.

When he is where the rest of them can’t see, turned away from her, she rushes him, clamping her hand down quickly over his mouth, and shoves her knife down reverse handed into his chest. 

Once. Twice.

He’s still standing. Fighting her. Making too much noise.

The woman comes running around the brush, and screams the boys name, raising a gun to shoot her, but Ellie has heard her coming, plunging the knife in a third time and using his body as a shield, before dropping down while pulling one of the guns off of him and shooting the woman through the heart.

Ellie’s already up and running again before the woman has hit the ground, grasping at the hole in her chest.

Just one more.

Then Dina’s safe.

Then she’s safe.

She can hear the man yelling to her, and she pays it no mind, creeping into a better position, until he says,

“I’LL KILL HER!”

Her heart pounding in her chest, Ellie walks into the clearing, the gun she took off of the boy zeroed in on the giant of man. He has his rifle pointed down behind Japan, at Dina’s head.

Ellie can feel the fire in her veins. The fury in every part of her being. If she could tear him apart with her teeth and her nails she would.

She keeps walking towards him for a better shot until he tilts his head and pushes the gun down, warning her not to come another step. 

She raises her hands, and they just stare at each, until she throws the gun away.

He starts to grin and pulls his rifle up to her.

Before he can even bring it level, she has reached back behind her, pulled out the revolver, and fired.

He falls to the ground, already dead before he gets there.

Ellie sprints over to Dina, and her eyes immediately start filling with stinging tears at what she sees, both wonderful and terrible.

Her beautiful, amazing Dina. Her best friend. Her heart. Laid out on the ground, her face slick with blood.

It was a sight she hoped to never see again.

Dina barely seems to be conscious as Ellie makes it to her. She kneels quickly beside her, and gently puts her good hand under Dina's head, wiping the blood from her face with her ruined one.

Tears fall off her cheeks onto Dina's face as she cries, “Dina... Dina! oh god, please, be ok… you’re going to be ok.”

With unfocused eyes, Dina looks up at her, and her expression changes from one of confusion to one of horror. She looks like she’s about to scream before her eyes roll back and her body goes limp.

“Di? _Dina?!_ ” Ellie looks down at her, panicking, “Wake up! Dina fucking wake up!”

She wills her shaking body to calm down long enough to search for Dina’s pulse and find that it’s still there. 

Ellie slowly pulls her out from under Japan, and rushes back to where she tied up the other horse, praying to whoever it was that Dina prays to that it was still there.

She couldn’t do right by Dina before. She couldn’t stay. 

She couldn’t stop herself from tearing their lives apart. 

But she can do this. 

She can save her now.

And nothing in the fucking world can stop her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mess with D, you get the E. 
> 
> And E gonna give it to ya.
> 
> A little bit of a different vibe in this chapter than the previous ones, and not just because it's a POV shift. I felt like it was important after Ellie's return in the last chapter to show how she got there though, before continuing on. 
> 
> I liked Adelaide. I liked the idea of someone from before the outbreak who had never found somewhere like Jackson, but also wasn't hardened to their core, even if they were only going to be around for a couple scenes.
> 
> Probably going to be another two day, maybe three day wait until the next update. They're back in the same place now. Want to get that right.
> 
> Side note: I found Joel very difficult to write. I know he didn't have _a lot_ of time in this, but the moments he was in took a while. I think it's his kind of... use of few words, easy but not dumb way of speaking. It's always so much easier to just write a lot, to over explain, and that's not his way. 
> 
> Any other people writing fics with Joel in it come up to that issue, or a similar one with other characters?
> 
> Another side note: I'm not sure why I feel inclined to say, but the song I listened to a lot while writing this chapter was "Lewis Takes Action" by Final Fantasy (also known as Owen Pallett). Just... a little tidbit there.
> 
> Find me on [Tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/whiskeytango8686) . Send a writing prompt for this series if you'd like, maybe I'll run with it.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Moving in.
> 
> The First day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've said it a couple times now, but really, thank you all so much. I never could have expected the response this story is getting. It's been thrilling and humbling.

They open the door, and she takes a step inside, looking around, setting the box of essentials all new arrivals are given on the floor, and letting her canvas bag fall off her shoulders.

“You sure you don’t want to switch?”, she says, tapping on the old wood burning heater in the corner.

“I already said yer welcome ta stay in the house with me. Plenty of room in there, kiddo”, Joel says in his low voice, putting down another box of supplies he carried in, and leaning against the entryway.

Ellie scans the one room… apartment, she guesses? It looks like it used to be a garage. It’ll be hard to figure out what to call this thing. 

It’s really not horrible. It’s got a small kitchen, it’s own bathroom. There’s already a bed in it, as well as a desk and a chair. The whole place is fairly big. Certainly more than she’s ever had to call her own before. She’d spent her whole life in dorms of one sort or another until last year.

“Nah… I think I want a place to myself.” She says, turning to him, but not really looking at him, “I was just also thinking _I_ probably deserve the house, and _you_ can live out here in the shack. I really wouldn’t mind all that much.”

Joel chuckles, the sound rumbling in his chest the way it does with him.

“Tha’ right…”, he clicks his tongue like he’s calling a horse, and raps his knuckles against the door frame. “Well, I think this place is gunn’a hafta do ya.” 

Ellie takes another look around, acting like she’s weighing her options.

“I guess it’ll work.”

Joel smiles crookedly. “Glad ta hear it.”

Ellie smiles back for a moment, but then goes back to not meeting his eyes. They both stand there awkwardly for a second, Ellie rocking back on her ankles, hands in her pockets, blowing out her cheeks. Joel raises his eyebrows and breathes in through his nose.

“Well... I guess I ought to... git situated in the mansion.”

Ellie just nods. “Guess so…”

“We’ll, uh… we’ll see ‘bout gittin’ ya some more stuff t’morrow, how’s tha’ sound?”, Joel keeps a hand wrapped around the doorframe, like he doesn’t want to let the door be allowed to shut. 

“Yeah, sounds good.” Ellie says, pretending to be looking around her new dwelling again.

“O’kay”, Joel nods, and grabs the doorknob, leaning into the room a bit before he shuts the door, “See ya ‘round, kiddo.”

“Yep”, She says as the door closes. 

She hears him walk back towards his new house, up the small deck and in through the back door.

“See you around, Joel.”, she says to the empty space.

Things had been frosty between them since Salt Lake. Since the hospital. They’d just spent so long trying to get there, to the Fireflies, and then once they were, she never even knew it. She’d gone straight from blacking out underwater in that tunnel to waking up in a surgical robe in the back of a truck, driving away from the city. Away from all the answers she needed, after all she had done.

She wanted to believe what Joel told her was the truth, as bad as it hurt. That she was special but that she wasn’t. That all her immunity did was allow her to watch other people die, saving herself just to get to watch it happen. She wondered if she’d ever meet one of the other people Joel said there were with that same… blessing.

She didn’t want to believe it because of what it meant for her immunity. That part was still raw, and she didn’t know if she would ever really come to terms with it. 

She needed to believe it because of what it meant for them if he wasn’t telling her everything. She couldn’t lose what they’d built together, whatever it was. 

She knew if he was lying to her… this life they were clawing out with each other from all the horror of the last year was over.

It was all she had thought about since they’d arrived in Jackson the day before, spending the previous night cooped up in a gymnasium that was used for new arrivals before they could be assigned a home. She couldn’t stand it any more. She needed to get some air, have a look around, get out of her head for a bit.

She takes a light blue journal and a pen out of her bag on the floor, pockets her switchblade, and leaves her... house? Home, now, she guesses.

She considers telling Joel she’s heading out for a bit, but instead just leaves through the side gate into the row of greenhouses, four of them with frames for more of the structures being built. As she walks by one, she stops to sketch one of the tomato plants growing inside that catches her eye, just beginning to burst with fruit.

She wanders around, following the sounds of activity, making her way through an alley out onto a street. She doesn’t know what she expected, but it wasn’t this. 

The streets are bustling with just… people. Going about their business. Stopping to talk to each other. Walking into little shops. Dogs trotting around and people bending down to scratch their heads. Adults running with their kids, holding their hands as they play.

There’s no convoys. There’s no checkpoints. No fenced off areas with shady looking men in military uniforms standing around “keeping order”. 

It steals the breath from her lungs. Was this what life was like before the outbreak? Could it really be like this again? Could it be like this for her? 

She’s walking down the street, sketching the scene at an intersection when a group of kids around her age comes bursting out of what looks like a movie theater, raucous and laughing. She’s staring at them when one of them notices her and breaks away.

“Hey, you new around?”, the boy asks, making his way over to her with a smile on his face. He’s tall, looks like he’s probably a couple years older than Ellie. He’s got moppy, thick black hair. She supposes most girls probably would find him really handsome. 

He’s not her type.

Ellie looks around, as if she’s not sure he’s talking to her, responding quietly, 

“What uh, what gave me away?”

“Definitely the note taking. You spying on us?”, he asks, his tone suddenly serious, his face ominous.

Her threat response starts to engage. She knew this place couldn’t be as nice as it appeared. 

“What? No! I was just-”

“I’m messin’ with you”, his smile returns immediately and easily, his hand coming out towards her. “I’m Jesse.”

She warily takes it. At least his handshake is firm. 

“Ellie”

“Tommy mentioned last night at the rotation meeting to be on the lookout for a new face. I’m guessing he was talking about you?”

Ellie looks at him sideways, “Rotation meeting?”

“Yeah, work rotations? We all gotta pitch in around here. Don’t worry, I’ll put in a good word for you, get you on farm rotation. It’s one of the best ones.” He starts walking back to his group.

When Ellie doesn’t follow, he stops and waves for her to come with him. She looks around dumbly for a second until he nods and widens the movement, indicating that, yeah, he meant her.

“C’mon, come meet some people. You’ll hate them”

Ellie grins a little bit and walks with him over to the group, who break apart and make room for the two of them.

“Everyone, this...”, he gestures broadly at her, “...is Ellie.”

Ellie gives an awkward smile and an even more awkward wave. “Hey… everyone.”

Jesse continues on, “We’ve got Antony and DeShawn over here..”, he points at two very similar looking boys, one a bit older than the other. They both smile and tip their heads back at her. If Ellie had to guess she’d say they were brothers. 

“.. annnd Hannah… Cat…”, two girls next to each other, one a tall blonde, the other shorter, with choppy black hair, cut to her chin, the back pulled up. She has the outline of a tattoo going up the whole length of her arm. The blonde doesn’t seem to be paying much attention to the whole introductions thing, but the girl with the tattoo gives Ellie a wink.

Ellie smiles a little shyly at her.

“and Micheal and Trav-”

“Thanks for waiting, you dicks! I said I’d just be a minute!” 

Jesse is interrupted by a voice coming behind the group when the door to the theater flies open. Ellie can’t see the source of it until a girl rounds the group, sidling up to Jesse before she catches sight of Ellie.

She’s small, shorter than Ellie, with thick wavy black hair that she has pulled into a loose bun on the back of her head, a strand hanging in front of each ear. She has warm, dark brown eyes, and the skin on her face is spotted with dark freckles. Ellie had thought that Cat girl was attractive, but this girl...

“Who’s this?”, the girl says with a warm smile, her tone much kinder than it was a moment ago, the question more directed to Ellie than anyone else. Ellie all of a sudden feels strange. Like a spotlight is on her that wasn’t before. In two words this girl made her feel like the center of attention.

“Ellie… I, uh, just got here yesterday.”, she says, thinking about exit strategies.

The girl steps towards her without warning and wraps her in a hug before she can go for her knife. 

“You’re going to love it here, Ellie. Do you have a place to stay?”, she says, holding on to her tightly, kind of weirding Ellie out since she doesn’t even know this girl's name yet.

“Uh, yeah… I do, thanks.”, Ellie says and lamely pats the girl on the back, expecting it to be over now, but the stranger doesn’t let go yet. Ellie has to admit, she kind of likes it. The contact with another person. The closeness. She hasn’t been hugged by anyone except Joel in at least a year. 

And holy shit, this girl smells amazing.

Ellie is on the verge of returning the embrace when the girl steps back, breaking the hug, but slides her hands down Ellie’s arm until they’re holding hands, making Ellie tense a bit as her fingers go over the bandage on her forearm. The girl doesn’t seem to pay it any mind.

Awfully touchy, this one.

The girl looks her square in the eye and gives her that same warm smile again.

“I’m Dina.”

\----------

The light in the room is bright when she wakes, piercing through her eyelids, making vivid bursts of color shoot across her vision even with her eyes still closed. She thinks she must have forgotten to close the curtains again. 

She wants to move, to stretch, but her limbs don’t seem to do as she asks, responding like she’s in thick mud. 

She slowly is able to raise her hand to rub her eyes. Her head feels unbearably heavy. As her hand touches her face, she can feel fabric taped down over her forehead, the spot underneath all of a sudden throbbing as she notices the covering.

A bandage?

Had she been hurt?

She struggles to open her eyes, and instead of finding the familiar walls of her bedroom, covered in the comforting, mournful reminders of her lost Ellie, she sees the inside of a room she doesn’t recognize, lit under fluorescent lights.

She looks around as her eyes adjust and see’s medical equipment and posters, and she realizes she’s lying on a thin bed in one of the private rooms in the medical clinic. No one else is there. 

The disquieting ache in her head grows sharper the more she tries to move. 

Had she been there long? Hours? A day? Weeks?

She couldn’t remember.

What had happened?

Why couldn’t she…

A flash of Anya smiling, her face completely covered in flowing blood.

No… _no_ …

Another of Antony looking at her, three holes in his chest, as he turns to walk into the woods.

She shoots up, curling over her risen knees, and puts her head in her hands, ignoring the pain, trying to make the flashes stop, but they only come faster, so vivid and with such clarity that it makes her stomach churn.

People screaming. 

Runners. 

Gunshots. 

Her friends dead on the ground. 

Japan lifeless on top of her. 

A man. A horrible man, his face bloody, hitting her. 

He’s going to kill her.

She’s going to die. She’s never going to see JJ again.

He’s dead now too.

Then…

And then…

Tears are gathering in her eyes and she doesn’t know why. She didn’t see what she thought she saw. It was just her mind trying to make sense of what was happening as she fell unconscious when she had seen…

She had seemed so real though. She had even heard her voice. 

She would always know her voice. Always. She hears it every night. 

She could feel her hand on her face, though it felt different, like something about it had changed. 

It must have been another patrol member, they must of heard-

Her reasonings that she didn’t see what she knows she saw are interrupted by a commotion outside the door to her room, voices arguing, steps growing closer. She can’t make them out. She doesn’t want to. 

That voice. 

Her heart starts pounding in her chest, her breath becoming labored, and she stares at the door, willing it not to open with every fibre of her being. She doesn’t think she can bear it. 

That voice. It can’t-

The door swings open, and all the air leaves the room.

Tears are falling on her face but she can’t even blink them away, her eyes refusing to shut.

Every muscle in her body tenses and relaxes simultaneously, only to tense again.

She inhales wild, shaky breaths through her mouth, her lungs constricting, telling her she’s fighting for oxygen, but her soul is telling her she’s breathing for the first time.

She feels everything, all at once. 

Every single moment.

From the very first time they saw each other until the last, and every moment since.

Pouring from the depths of her heart into her body until she can feel them in her toes.

Ellie is in front of her. 

Alive. 

Alive and _real._

Beautiful and glorious and _here._

All of the the new bruises and scars and all the weight she's lost do nothing to dim her beauty to Dina. They don't matter, because she's _here._

After all this time.

Through the shaking in her bones, she wants to reach out and touch her. To feel Ellie’s hands on her. To feel every inch of Ellie pressed against her. To feel Ellie’s lips again. Her nails. Her teeth. Her tongue.

Her skin is screaming for Ellie.

After all this…

Ellie is looking at her with an expression that she can only imagine mirrors her own, her chest rising heavily, her eyes wet. Those eyes. 

She takes a step forward, and Dina’s body longs for Ellie to just rush to her, to grab her and prove that they’re both alive.

After…

… after all this time.

Ellie opens her mouth to speak, but it takes her a few seconds for any words to come out.

“I… I thought you’d still be-”

“Get out”

The words escape Dina’s lips before she realizes she’s spoken them, low and quiet, barely a whisper. 

She doesn’t even know where they came from at first. She almost thinks someone else had said it. 

Her body was still on fire, set ablaze from the sudden proximity to Ellie, but under that longing, other feelings had started to creep in, their voices small but growing louder with each passing moment.

Abandonment. Loss.

Anger.

All the sleepless nights. 

Watching JJ look around, knowing he was searching for Ellie’s face. Hearing him cry when he couldn’t find it. 

The nightmares that would jolt her awake in the dark when she could finally find rest after having to exhaust herself in order to sleep.

The loneliness that she couldn’t shake. The utter emptiness that she couldn’t fill.

She felt like she could have created a new body of water with all the tears she had cried. 

And now what she had feared was coming true. In all the days that Ellie was gone, hoping for this exact moment, that gnawing possibility was finally realized. 

That what Ellie had broken couldn’t be fixed. 

Even if Ellie came back from the dead to do it.

She still couldn’t tear her eyes away from Ellie. She had seen her beaten and bloodied. She had seen her screaming on the floor, some horrible thing no one else could see playing in front of her eyes. She had seen her afraid of what she had done, what she was capable of.

Whatever it was on Ellie’s face now, she had never seen before. It broke her heart all over again. 

She wonders if it’s the same expression Ellie had seen on her, that morning in their kitchen, begging her not to go.

The words come again, slipping past her teeth.

“Get out, Eh-”, the name sticks in her throat. She’s afraid if she says it, her courage, already fading with Ellie right here in front of her, will fail.

“Dina-”, hearing her name fall from those lips is like a knife through her heart, too much for her to take, and it forces a scream to rip its way from her lungs,

_“GO!”_

The word rings through the room, echoing against the walls, and when it’s gone, Ellie is too.

The shock ripples through Dina’s body, and when Robin and Mitchell find her on the bed a few minutes later, she’s still crying.

\----------

Ellie can’t get out of the clinic fast enough.

The look on Dina’s face when she had looked at her. Like just seeing her hurt. Like she couldn’t breathe with Ellie in the room.

She pushes past patients, the workers inside, the nurse she had argued with, trying to fight back the tears that are threatening to fall. 

Get away. Get somewhere private first. Then fall apart.

Why is everyone staring at her like this? Why had the guards on the wall looked at her so strangely? They knew her, she had recognized almost all of them. They hadn’t even said a word as she screamed and screamed at them to open the fucking gate with Dina lying on the back of the horse, blood still pooling under the temporary bandage Ellie had made out of her own ripped shirt. 

As she rode past them, they had all just stood there dumbly. 

She didn’t look at anyone else as she galloped through Jackson until she made it to the clinic, urging the horse up the steps to the door, carefully lowering Dina down onto her shoulders and running in, wailing unintelligibly for someone, for anyone to help. 

Again, the same looks the guards had given her, like the people inside had seen a fucking ghost or something.

Finally, someone rushed over and took Dina from her grasping hands, putting her onto one of the few gurneys they had, and wheeled her away into the back, another woman rushing out the door, telling someone they were going to find Robin.

Ellie had paced madly in the front for ten minutes, no one speaking to her, just hearing hushed whispers and feeling eyes watching her every move, before she stormed into the back. She had to see if Dina was ok.

A man had tried to stop her, but she forced her way into the room, and Dina was awake, and she was…

And Ellie had hoped... and felt…

It didn’t matter how Ellie felt now. She didn’t get to feel those things.

_“Get out”_

That’s all that mattered. Dina didn’t want her there, so she left.

As she got down the steps, grabbing her bag from the saddle of the horse, the woman who had ran out earlier was returning, Robin and Mitchell hurrying behind her, and again… looks of… sheer disbelief? 

She couldn’t figure it out. Like no one thought she’d ever come back. 

She doesn’t stop for them. They don’t try to make her as they run into the clinic.

She feels completely untethered, her feet guiding her aimlessly down the street, not looking at anything or anyone, when she hears footsteps running up to her and suddenly stop a short distance from where she is,

“Ellie…?”, a familiar voice says.

She looks up to find Maria staring at her, her hand over her heart, like she’s trying to stop it from beating out of her chest, a pair of watch members behind her.

All she can do is give a few small nods, and start to say, “It’s me-”, before Maria is hugging her, close and tight. Maria has never hugged her like this. She wonders if Maria has ever hugged anyone like this.

She can’t bring herself to lift her arms to return it, they just lay weakly at her sides.

Maria steps back, and holds Ellie’s arms in her hands, like she thinks Ellie will disappear if she lets her go, and shakes her head.

“You…”, she sighs, saying both sadly and like she’s chiding a misbehaving child, “...you stupid, stupid girl.”

Ellie nods again, not able to look her in the eye, “Yeah…”

She looks around them, and she sees faces quickly turn away, everyone acting like they weren’t just gaping at her. She has to know.

“Maria… why… why is every-”

Maria’s head swivels, taking notice of the scene around them, and she takes a deep breath through her nose, before turning back and looking deep into Ellie’s face, some calculation working in her eyes. Like she’s trying to decide what she should say.

“I need you to tell me what happened out there first.”

Ellie’s breathing picks up as events from just hours ago come flooding back into her, pushed away in her single minded focus to get Dina to safety.

“I.. was coming here from the farm, I hadn’t even reached the main trail yet...and there was screaming… and shooting and…”

Her face darkens as she remembers the scene she came across.

“... there were hunters. I… I killed them all. They were going to kill Dina. They had already killed two others before-”

Maria lets out a strangled gasp and whips her head around to the two watch members behind her.

“Go! _Go!_ South-West Route 2, up the west fork, send a team! _Now!_ ”

As they go sprinting away, Ellie feels tendrils of shame arcing through her. She had been so obsessed with saving Dina she hadn’t given the other two patrol members who had died a second thought. They could be anyone. They had people who cared about them and were waiting for them to come back, and now they never would, and Ellie had just left them laying in the dirt. Not even stopped to think about it until now.

Maria looks back at her, pangs of grief on her face, the same Ellie had seen anytime Maria heard the news that someone from patrol wasn’t coming home. 

“Maria, I’m sorry, I couldn’t-”

Maria waves her hand for her to stop, and clears her throats, never one to let emotion overtake her long.

“I’m sure you did what you could. Come with me. This is gonna seem cruel, but I just…”, she exhales through her nose, her mouth a straight line, “... I don’t know how else to tell you right now.”

Maria leads her away, and she feels like the whole town is watching them go.

\----------

Ellie can’t think of what to say.

She knows she often struggles to put voice to her words. She was always better with writing them down than speaking them out loud. 

She doesn’t even know what she’d write.

A line from a western she had watched with Joel at least a dozen time’s keeps playing in her head. Joel would always say it in time with the movie. She can hear it in his voice.

_“You look like someone just walked over yer grave.”_

Nothing but a clever turn of phrase for her to use in her writing until she had nearly walked over her own.

Maria stood a little ways behind, and waited, watching her. Letting her absorb what this meant as best she could.

Ellie just stared, blinking slowly at the headstone standing next to Joels, some white flowers in the urn in front of it. They looked like they had just been put there.

When she finally found the ability to speak, she was only able to stammer out, 

“B-but… I’m not-”

“Word reached here a couple weeks back from some new arrivals. Someone matchin’ your description, down to your tattoo, stormin’ into some slaver den out in California, with a wound that was likely to kill her.”, Ellie instinctively reached for her side, Maria noting the movement.

“...they said even if that hadn’t done her in, that they’d burned the place to the ground with everyone inside. They said they stayed to watch.”

Ellie just shakes her head, not believing it. It doesn’t seem possible.

“I wasn’t in-”

Maria just cuts her off, “Does it even matter now?”

Ellie supposes it doesn’t. The damage has already been done. 

She looks at the flowers, the petals and leaves moving softly in the breeze.

“And… Dina?”

“There was…”, Maria stops for a moment. It sounds to Ellie like she’s working to control her own voice. After a beat, she continues, “... there was a funeral.”

She sounds like she wants to say more, but stops herself. Ellie nods, not needing to hear it.

“Look, I…”, Maria coughs, “I have to go get two more of these made…”, her voice falling, “... inform their families.”

Ellie closes her eyes, guilt washing over her again.

“They also said you got bit?”

Ellie just holds up her mutilated hand over her shoulder for Maria to see. 

Though she’s still not facing the woman, she can hear her let out a quick breath at the sight, “My god, girl. What’s become of you…”

Ellie doesn’t know the answer to that herself. She thought she’d find it back here in Jackson, with Dina and JJ, but now…

“The folks who made it from California live here now, you’re gonna have to come up with a story for how you lived through that. Town isn’t big enough to not run into them eventually. You can have your old place, no one lives in it, but-”

Ellie turns around quickly, wide eyed, “Maria, I don’t think-”

Maria looks at her firm, taking a few fast steps towards her. 

“You _are_ stayin’. At least for now. God damn, Ellie, look at yourself.”, Ellie doesn’t think she’ll ever be able to follow that command again, “Joel would come out of that grave and kill me himself if I let you go anywhere in this state.”

Ellie doesn’t have anything left in her to argue, not right now. 

She turns around to look at the flowers one more time, and asks quietly, 

“Do you know… does Dina leave those here?”

Maria looks over her shoulder at the headstone and sighs, looking off down another row of graves, not meeting Ellie’s questioning face.

“I don’t think she’s been here since the funeral... I’m pretty sure Tommy leaves them.”

Tommy. She hadn’t even considered him. Hadn’t even thought about how the news of her “death” would affect the man who had been like family to her for years, however they had left things when they had last seen each other.

“He…”, she again seems to have trouble getting the words out, “He lives in Joel’s old house. You’re gonna have to let him know you’re movin’ back into your place, he might be keepin’ stuff in there.”

Ellie feels a lump in her throat at the thought of anyone living in Joel’s house, as inevitable as that was, let alone Tommy taking up there.

“And anyways, he deserves to know about you without findin’ out from lookin’ out his back window. Or from some rumor that I’m sure is already half way through town.”

Maria turns to leave, and when Ellie doesn’t move to follow, she turns back and grips her shoulder with one hand and squeezes tight.

“Now go on, no point lingerin’ here.”

Maria lets go and starts heading away, leaving Ellie at her own grave.

“You’re not dead yet.”

\----------

They let her go in the early evening. They say her injuries aren’t life threatening, that the stitches can come out in about a week, and that she’ll be fine, to just take it easy for a few days. Get some rest.

Let them know if it hurts too much.

That was fucking rich.

If it _“hurts too much”_.

Dina doesn’t even know what that means anymore. 

She had just seen the love of her life come back from the fucking dead, and Dina couldn’t even stand to look at her. Couldn’t be in the same room with her.

_“Hurts too much.”_

Dina had laughed at the nurse when he had said it.

“Oh dear, the pills must be kicking in.” Robin had said, and her and Mitchell had taken her by each arm and led her out. 

She had laughed about it the whole way home. 

A neighbor had watched JJ while Robin and Mitchell had rushed off to the clinic, and when they get back with Dina, he squeals happily, raising his arms to her. As soon as Dina sees him she falls to her knees and crawls over to him, hugging him against her, tickling his stomach, kissing him madly, holding him above her head, anything to make him laugh. 

She wants to cry. Cry so hard. She’s so happy that he’ll never have to know how close they had come to this never happening. 

Soon, he’s fallen asleep on the floor, and her beside him, just content to be with her son.

She wakes in the dark of her bedroom, and looks at her clock. It was still fairly early. She figures Mitchell must have carried her up there. Her head had started to ache again, the effects of the pills from the clinic not as strong as they were earlier. She moves to get up, and feels Ellie’s shirt in its place on the bed beside her. She holds it in her hand for a moment, and tosses it on the floor.

She changes into new clothes, leaving the photograph of Ellie from her shirt on her desk, face down. She moves to exit the room, but her hand stills on the knob. She quickly grabs the photo and shoves it back into her shirt pocket, annoyed with herself, before leaving.

She checks on JJ, sound asleep in his crib. When she gets downstairs, Mitchell is in the living room, reading, some old music playing softly on a tape player. He looks up at her as she heads to the door. 

“You alright?”, he asks gruffly. 

She throws on her light canvas jacket. “Yeah. I have to go see the Thomas's.”

Mitchell nods, “Hmm… he was a fine boy.”

Dina nods back, appreciating his further lack of questions, the understanding they’ve always seemed to have.

“He was,” she opens the door and walks out, ”g’night pop.”

The nights are growing cold, like it always starts to this time of year, up in the mountains. She walks briskly, though she’s not looking forward to her destination. She has to go to Antony’s first. She had realized she didn’t even know where Anya and her family lived. She had never asked. Some friend she was. 

She doesn’t even know what she’s going to say when she gets there, she just knows she has to go… she has to say something.

Maria is outside the Thomas’s house when Dina walks up, her hand on DeShawn’s shoulder. She thinks he’s been crying. Him and Antony were so close. Maria turns around to leave, and they lock eyes for a moment, before Maria moves to the street to give Dina and DeShawn some space. 

Dina wraps her arms around DeShawns neck and pulls him tight, and he returns the hug. She can feel the wetness of his cheeks.

“I’m so... so sorry.”, she says softly, “he was such a kind-”

DeShawn seems to lose his composure and pulls away from her, wiping at his face. 

“Yeah… yeah, he was,” he says, sniffing. “Look, thanks for coming over Dina, but I… I gotta be with my dad. He needs me right now.”

Dina nods, holding back tears she doesn’t feel she gets to shed in front of him, “Give him my best.

“I will.” He says, already closing the door.

Dina breathes in, tilting her head back and running a finger under both eyes to clear them, before turning around to walk back to the street, hands in her back pockets, where Maria is waiting for her.

“Dina, I had no idea…”

“I know”, she walks past the woman, not heading anywhere. “I know.”

Maria turns and walks with her, hands on her hips.

Dina turns to her after a few steps, “Have you already been to the McNamaras?”

Maria just nods, offering a terse “Uh-huh.”

“I… “, she doesn’t want to say it, feeling too guilty, “... I don’t know where they live.”

“Down Fayette, right off 6th. The yellow house.” Maria glances at her. “Don’t go tonight. I don’t think they’re up for any more visitors.”

They walk in silence for a bit, before Maria says, “How’s the head?”

She sighs, it hurts. “I’ll survive.”

Maria notches her head to the side, “Ellie hadn’t been there…”

Dina stops and swivels on her in the street, “Jesus, Maria, really?”

The older woman pauses, just looking at her. “Alright… alright. It’s your twos business, not mine.”

“We don’t have any business.”, Dina says quickly, hoping she sounds more confident than she feels.

“Well, you should let her know that then.”, Dina can tell Maria’s patience is thin, “She’s stickin’ around. At her old place. I plan on findin’ her work, and I won’t be havin’ people at each other's necks in my town.”

“I’m not going to be-”

“Her old place.”, Maria says harshly, “I’m not tellin’ you you have to do anything about it tonight. I know you’ve been through a lot. But that girl…”, she shakes her head, looking away for a moment. “She looked like she’s been through her own hell too.”

Dina is about to start arguing, when Maria holds up her hand, done with this conversation. “Soon.”, and walks away towards her house, leaving Dina standing, fuming in the street.

She turns in that old familiar direction, steeling her nerves. Hoping she’s ready for this but knowing she’s not.

No time like the present.

\----------

She had considered coming in from the side gate like she had always used to, but something about it seemed too familiar now. Like she wasn’t allowed to anymore. So she walked around the block, to head in from the large front entrance.

She stood in the road, facing the house for what felt like hours. She hadn’t been there since she moved back. She avoided this street whenever she could, had tried not to even look down it, even during the funeral.

The funeral.

It seemed so long ago now, and it made her feel so small. Like she had been made a fool of.

She’s about to head into the gate when she hears from across the street behind her… that voice.

That voice that had both soothed and haunted her for so long, and now was so real and close.

“Dina?”

She has to shut her eyes for a moment before slowly turning around, trying to keep her face as hard as possible. She came here for a reason. She has to see it through.

When her eyes fall on Ellie, her resolve almost immediately melts away. Everything she had wanted for so long was there in front of her, and all she had to do was reach out, and…

“Maria told me you were moving back in.”, she forces her voice to say, her heart wanting to say so much more.

So many different emotions are playing across Ellie’s face, and Dina knows her well enough to know that she has so much she wants to say but is struggling to figure out how. Parts of her want to hear all of it. Parts of her don’t want to hear any of it.

Ellie sniffs, and rubs her face, taking a few slow steps out of the cemetery towards her. “Um… yeah. I guess so…”

Dina stays where she stands, and looks back at the house, needing a reprieve from looking at Ellie, “You know Tommy lives here now?

“Maria told me.” Ellie doesn’t take her eyes off of her, still taking tentative steps forward, quickly putting her hands in her pockets, like she’s trying to hide something.

Dina wraps her arms around herself, looking at the ground. “So… what? You’re going to… _‘stick around’_?”, the words tasting bitter as she says them.

Ellie stops a few feet from her, and looks away then. Dina knows the question stung. Ellie says quietly, “I didn't have a plan, but once I saw you… I thought… I had hoped we-”

Dina quickly holds a hand up before bringing it to her face to wipe at tears that are starting to form, “No, Ellie… no. Whatever you hoped… no.” 

Her heart is shattering with each word. She had once imagined her entire life spent with Ellie, and now she was watching that life die, one day at a time, by her own hand right when it was being offered to her again.

No, _no._ She needed to remember. Ellie chose this. Not her.

Ellie’s eyes, those eyes she had loved so much, were filling with tears that Dina knows she’s trying to fight back. Her voice starts to come out faster, more pained, “Dina… I know… I fucking _know_ I shouldn’t have left, but I’m here now…”

Dina laughs humorlessly, “I fucking _mourned_ for you. We had a fucking _funeral,_ Ellie!”, she throws her hands down, like her point should be so obvious, “and you think you can just walk back into my life? You can’t do that! You can’t…”, her breath catches, and she feels like she’s going to start crying in earnest, “... you don’t get to do that.”

Ellie has stopped fighting back the tears, and closes the distance between them, overwhelming Dina’s senses. Her body wants to latch on to Ellie, to shut out everything that’s saying to push her away. 

Ellie puts her hands on her face, and Dina’s eyes almost roll back into her head, the charge of her touch sending currents straight to her heart, making her feel like she’s alive for the first time since they were separated. 

“Di… I love you… _I fucking love you._ Please, _please_ just…”

Dina feels like she’s going to collapse, hearing her say those words again. She wants to say them back. 

Ellie’s lips are so close to her, it wouldn’t take anything at all to just tilt her head and…

“Just let me try to fix this. I _can_ … The moment I saved you today I _knew_ I could-”

She slaps both of Ellie’s hands away, and steps back, fighting to regain the will that was being sapped from her moments ago. 

The words Ellie had used send Dina over the edge, all of her resentment boiling over all at once.

“Saved me?! Fucking _saved me?!_ ”, Ellie’s eyes are wide with confusion.

“I’ve been walking around this town like a fucking ghost since you walked out on us! _Do you not get that?!_ ”, she was screaming so loud she was sure lights were going to start turning on in houses on the block.

“Dina…”, Ellie looks like she’s falling apart at every seam.

“And now you come back and think you’ve ‘saved me’?! Fuck you, Ellie! _Fuck you!_ Don’t you understand? You fucking _killed me!_ ”, the words leave her mouth, and they both fall silent.

Ellie’s hand is convulsing over her heart, like it’s trying to start it beating again, and tears are streaming down her face.

“You left…”, Dina says so quietly now that she’s not sure if she’s it saying to Ellie or to herself, looking at the ground to avoid having to see the hurt she’s causing, “... and I died.”

She has to leave. She wants to run. To curl up into a hole and never be seen or thought of again. To never know this pain could be real, and that she could do it to herself.

She starts to walk away, her voice splitting, “If you stay, I know we’ll see each other, but… I don’t want this anymore.”, not knowing if it’s true or not.

“Wait, _please_ … wait.” Ellie says sobbing.

Dina stops, but doesn’t turn around, hoping that Ellie says something perfect. She doesn’t know what. Just that there’s something that will undo everything. She wants it so desperately it makes her body shiver.

“Can… can I still see JJ?… _please, please_ … I need…” her words are broken by sobs she’s trying and failing to fight back, and she can only finally whisper, “... please.”

She remembers Ellie as a mother. How amazing she was. How much JJ loved her. How much she loved him, and how much it filled Dina’s heart to see them together. How much more complete their family was when they were one.

And she can’t. She can’t bear it.

“I… I don’t think so.”

She leaves Ellie broken in the street.

She barely makes it around the corner and out of sight before she’s broken too.

\----------

She stands at the gate, pack around her shoulders. She never even knocked on Tommy’s door. Never even made it out of the cemetery.

Not before Dina had shown up.

There was so much she had wanted to say, but she’s never known how. She’s just… never known. 

Everything had turned out so wrong, and it was all her fault. She didn’t know how to make it right. She didn’t think there was a way.

So here she was, at the open gates to Jackson at midnight, having dusted herself off from the street, and decided to…

… to what?

To move on?

Is that what she was calling it?

Joel would have told her different.

Joel would have said she was running away.

Again.

But why fucking stay? Dina had made what she wanted pretty clear. 

Ellie had destroyed her, in ways she didn’t know she was capable of. 

She was capable of so much.

So now…

She’ll…

… she’ll…

She turns around and looks back at Jackson. The place where she and Joel had built a home together. Where she had made friends. 

Where she’d met Dina.

Where they’d fallen in love.

_"Ya keep findin' somethin' ta fight for."_

The watch member calls down to her, “Hey, I can’t keep this open any more, you leaving or not?”

_"Find your purpose, and fight for it."_

She looks back at the open expanse of the wild in front of her, a life free from pain, that she feels and that she's caused, from having to fight anymore, and quickly turns around, walking home into Jackson, calling back. 

“No...”

“...I’m not.”

\----------

After talking to Eugene about the projectors, she looks out into the lobby and finds it empty, and huffs to herself. Of course. They never wait. 

She jogs through the room, and opens the door with a quick kick to the hand bar, shouting,

“Thanks for waiting, you dicks! I said I’d just be a minute!” 

Her friends are standing in a semi-circle, talking, it seems like to someone else she can’t see who didn’t come to the movie showing with them. 

She smiles and walks around them, pulling up next to Jesse, saying,

“Who’s this?”

But no ones there.

No. 

This is wrong. 

She knows… 

There should be a girl there.

Her friends stare at her in silence.

Where is… she? The girl with the red hair.

The girl with the green eyes.

She should be here.

Dina looks down the street, but doesn’t see her.

She starts running.

She doesn’t know why, but she feels such a pull. Like she won’t be complete until the girl with the red hair is there.

She searches every corner, every shop, every house but she’s nowhere. She’s nowhere.

She finds herself on the wall somewhere, looking down over the other side.

She turns around and the girl is with her. And the girl is smiling, and the sun is bright and radiant behind her.

She feels relief wash over her entire body.

But she reaches out, and pushes the girl off the wall.

The girl’s face isn’t angry. Or afraid.

She’s just sad. 

And she falls and falls forever.

And Dina never feels complete again.

Dina’s eyes slowly open, her pillow damp against her face. She realizes she had been crying in her sleep. 

Usually in her nightmares of Ellie, it was of her leaving. Or finding her dead. Or of her being killed… but she had never killed her herself. Not like it felt she did tonight when…

Her body shakes all over when she remembers what had happened, and she tries to shut it out. To will herself back to sleep. She has to sleep.

Hours pass as she lies awake.

Eventually she reaches down off the bed and pulls Ellie's shirt off the floor that she had discarded earlier, never intending to have it with her again. She wraps it tight, holding it to her chest, against her heart.

It’s been long, long months since Ellie has worn it, and Dina had eventually given in to cleanliness and washed it, soap covering up any actual hint of the memories that had lingered on it, but tonight… tonight she can swear she can smell Ellie on it.

The lavender. The woods. The whiskey. Everything. 

She doesn’t want to.

But she smiles.

And she falls asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A weird little insight into my process for anyone who is interested: The opening flashback to this chapter was originally written as the opening to Chapter 5. Normally how I write is just top to bottom, in the case of this fic, flashback for the chapter first, then the bulk of the story. Even though I'll have an idea of how the chapter will go, I want the flashback to inform the narrative. 
> 
> I didn't make the decision to rewrite Chapter 5's opening until I had written the final line of it, "Dina had never believed in ghosts before that moment." I loved idea of that, but it didn't call back to anything _and_ the opening flashback didn't really connect to the story at all _and_ it kind of Chekhovs Gunned that Ellie would be factoring into the story by being from her POV. So I wrote a new flashback scene and and it worked way better.
> 
> But I knew this chapter would be the one where Ellie returning to Jackson. And then things started to fall into place a bit around the original Chapter 5 flashback.
> 
> Just kind of funny how things work out, I guess.
> 
> Since I said last time, the song I listened to a lot while writing this one was "Bones" by Low Roar, an extended loop on youtube.
> 
> Find me on [Tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/whiskeytango8686) . Send a writing prompt for this series if you'd like, maybe I'll run with it.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The First Time
> 
> Staying Away

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You all are great. Really. Hope you enjoy this next one.

Ellie should have been back by now, and it was getting bad out there.

The farm house had seemed sturdy when Tommy had first shown it to them, he had even gone through and inspected it too, room by room, saying something about how him and Joel used to do stuff like that before the outbreak. It seemed like a good, solid place to start their lives together. Their family. 

But now, as the roof complained, making a new labored groan every other minute as more snow packed on top of it, Dina didn’t feel so sure.

The snows had come back late this year, with only fairly light falls that melted away almost as soon as the sun hit them. But the week after their baby boy was born, it was as if the sky had let loose everything it had been holding back for all the months before. 

They had needed more supplies from Jackson, running out quicker than they had anticipated with the new child, and the weather hadn’t yet turned when Ellie had kissed her goodbye in the early hours of the morning, climbed on Japan, and rode away. 

That had been ten hours ago, and since then the world had been enveloped in heavy white.

Dina paced the floor from one room to another, unable to still herself, one hand to her face with her thumb planted firmly between her teeth, the nail growing smaller by the minute, and her other arm softly rocking her son. He was curled safely in the sling that Robin had given them, but she still felt better, more safe with her arm around him. A piece of herself existed outside of her body now, the least she could do was hold it.

And somewhere out there, in all that cold and wind, was another piece. 

And god damnit, she should have been back by now.

She was probably worrying over nothing, she convinced herself. Ellie had probably gotten to Jackson, seen what it was starting to be like, and just stayed at Maria and Tommy’s. 

Yeah, that made sense. Ellie was smart. She knew Dina and the baby would be safe here. They had enough to last another couple days. Dina could try to manage the sheep by herself. The thought of dealing with them so soon after labor made parts of her she wanted to pretend didn’t exist anymore ache, but she could manage, despite the weather. 

As long as Ellie was safe.

Another hour passes, and she’s furiously pacing the kitchen, the baby in his crib that they had brought down by the fireplace, trying to force herself to not just stand at the front window, her face pressed against the pane to try to see down the trail, when a black shape trotts passed the kitchen windows, heading to the barn.

Dina runs to the dining room to try to get a better look through the falling snow, but can’t make out the figure as it disappears. 

She’s pulling on her boots and is about to run out the back door when Ellie appears at it, dropping a few heavy bags inside, shivering, her face scarlet from the cold, her hair and her coat covered in snow.

“Oh, babe, thank god!”, Dina says, pulling Ellie inside and wrapping her arms around her, ignoring the snow melting against her own clothes. “You had me so worried, you dick!”

She leans back, intending to slap her arm, but there’s something strange about Ellie’s face. She looks shaken. Her breath is shallow and uneven, and her eyes look almost blank, like they hardly see Dina standing in front of her.

Dina puts her hands softly on Ellie’s cold cheeks, and searches her eyes, trying to make them see her, “Hey… hey, are you okay? Ellie? Did something happen?”

“I…”, Ellie’s eyes seem to focus on her, “...um… no...”

“Ellie… you were gone so long…”, Dina says, her eyebrows knitting. Ellie’s face certainly wasn’t telling the same story.

Ellie moves her hands up to grasp Dina’s, and she turns her head to kiss her palms, saying more confidently, “Yeah, I’m sorry… I stayed in Jackson too long and then got lost on the way back. Trail was covered and I couldn’t see a fucking thing out there.”

Dina pulls back a bit, wanting to ask more, but Ellie just blows into her hands and rubs them together, “Where’s the Potato? I want to see him before I get changed.”

“He’s napping in there”, Dina points and Ellie quickly moves past her. She can hear Ellie quietly fawning over him in his crib and she stands in the kitchen, not all of her concern from when Ellie was gone having washed away.

Ellie stays upstairs for a long time time after that. Dina wants to go check on her, but doesn’t.

Later, Ellie makes them a simple dinner. Dina is ravenous, but she can’t help but notice that Ellie barely touches her food. Ellie just says she’s not very hungry, and Dina doesn’t press. Ellie just gets up from the table early and goes to play with the baby, her face looking like herself for the first time since she got back home that day.

That night, they decide to sleep downstairs next to the fireplace for warmth. Ellie brings down the mattress from their bed, and throws down all of their extra blankets and sheets. After the baby falls asleep, they huddle together under a mountain of bedding, creating a nest for just the two of them. 

Ellie is still quiet and withdrawn. Like she’s somewhere else completely.

Dina has been thinking about this for a long time, but she’s glad she hadn’t brought it up earlier. Ellie seems like she could use some cheering up.

“Hey…”, she says, nudging Ellie, “I have a surprise for you, but you have to agree to it.”

Ellie seems to come back to herself, and grins a little, “I mean… I appreciate the thought, but I’m really, _really_ tired…”, earning her a shove from Dina.

“I pushed a tiny person _out_ of my body less than a week ago, you cavewoman”, she scoffs, pretending like Ellie could ever forget, having had a front row seat. She thinks the memory of Ellie seeing her like that will mortify her until she draws her last breath. She’ll be lying there dying and her last thought will be _“Ellie just… watched it happen”._

Of course, Ellie hadn’t just watched. She had been like the delivering physician, and Dina’s birth coach, and her partner all at once. She gripped Dina’s hand the entire time even when Dina was scared she was going to snap Ellie’s bones like twigs. Ellie was the first person to hold their son, and Dina knew she’d never forget the look on Ellie’s face in that moment.

But she had also watched it happen. 

Ellie smirks, “You’re right, we should give it another day or two.”

“Do you want your surprise or not?”, Dina shoots, raising her eyebrows.

“Yes, please”, Ellie smiles and nods, holding out one cupped hand.

Dina inhales, and takes her hand. “I… thought of a name for him.”

The last sonogram machine at the clinic had broken down at some point a couple years ago, and with no leads on any new ones, they had never found out if the baby was going to be a boy or a girl. Following that lead, they had decided to go all in, and be romantic, not choose a name for them either until they first saw them, thinking it would just come, like they’d see them and the baby would practically name themselves. 

They’d since been bickering about it all week.

Ellie cocks her lips, looking into her eyes, curiosity on her face, “You don’t like ‘Potato’? I don’t think there’s anything wrong with naming him after what he looks like. That’s how oranges got their name.”

“Ellie…”

“Or ‘Spud’... ‘Lil Spud’? I’d be fine with-”

“I think we should name him JJ.”

Ellie falls silent, and Dina can tell she grasped the meaning immediately. She waits for Ellie to speak, her lips working for a moment, but no words coming out. She’s finally able to whisper,

“Are… are you sure?”

Dina nods slowly, biting her bottom lip, “If you want.”

Ellie nods back in reply, not seeming to be able to reply. Her face is a mix of emotions, not all of which Dina can place or was expecting. She was expecting surprise, joy, maybe some tears. She had of course realized it was a bittersweet suggestion, to try to honor both Jesse, their lost friend and their son’s father, and Joel, who she knew Ellie thought about every day still. But she didn’t expect it to elicit the sorrow she was seeing, if even for a brief moment.

She brushes a strand of hair from Ellie’s face, and scoots closer to her, “Hey… are you sure you’re alright?”

“Yeah… “, Ellie clears her throat, and offers her a small smile. “Lets name him JJ.”

Dina presses her forehead against Ellie’s, and kisses her softly. “Lets.”, and they wrap each other up in a tangle of arms and legs, and fall asleep in their cocoon.

When Dina wakes up, she doesn’t feel the familiar warm of Ellie lying next to her. The sun isn’t out yet, and the fire has burned down to embers. She looks around the room but doesn’t see Ellie, or hear the ba.. JJ in his crib. 

Wrapping two of the blankets around herself, she heads quietly up the stairs, figuring maybe Ellie had heard JJ stirring and went to walk around with him so as to not wake her.

The floor creaks when she walks softly into their bedroom and see’s Ellie quickly closing one of the dresser drawers, holding JJ in the other arm, turning to face Dina with a guilty smile. 

“Oh hey, he got up and… I didn’t want to wake you.”

Dina yawns, glancing at the dresser, “He’s probably just hungry… come back to bed.”

“Okay, yeah”, Ellie follows her back downstairs, handing JJ to her, and relights the fire while Dina feeds JJ in the armchair. Ellie curls back on the mattress under the covers, and doesn’t say any more. 

Once JJ has settled and is cooing quietly back in his crib, Dina lowers herself back down next to Ellie and wraps herself around her. She can’t tell if Ellie is asleep or not. She’ll ask in the morning she thinks, but never does.

Whenever the snow falls heavy that winter, the nights are hard.

\----------

Ellie would probably say the reunion with her uncle-of-sorts was a “mixed bag”.

She had thought about putting it off until the morning, maybe trying to jimmy the lock on her old place, or just sleep out in one of the chairs on the porch, but reconsidered when she thought about him walking out front in the morning to find what he could only think was her corpse out there if she were still asleep. 

She didn’t want to kill him, she just wanted a place to stay. She needed somewhere to go to sleep and not have to think about Dina and JJ.

So after standing at the door for minutes, working up the courage to do it, she knocks. Sounds inside come faster than she had expected. He’s still up. A good first step.

“It is my night off, go the _fuck away!_ ”, a shout comes from an area she identifies as the living room, followed by some more muffled cursing about “all the shoutin”’ that was going on earlier.

Angry. Sounds like he’s been drinking a little. Two steps in the wrong direction.

No turning back now. She takes a deep breath and calls into the door. 

“Tommy. It’s me.”

Silence, and then a flurry of noise, rushed footsteps, one dragging behind the other, and the door flies open. Tommy stands there, holding the doorknob, his mouth open. He rubs at his good eye, as though he’s trying to make sure it’s not playing tricks on him.

Ellie gives him a small tight smile and holds her arms out, like she’s presenting herself. 

“Still ali-”, she starts to say before he wraps her in a bear hug. 

“Goddamn, girl”, he laughs into her hair, “Ain't no gettin’ rid of you, is there?”

“Guess not”, she says, patting him on the back.

He steps away, his hands on her arms, and lets out a breath. “Ya got no idea… it’s jus’... it’s good ta see ya.”

Ellie swallows hard, and has to look away for a second. Tommy’s the first person to say that to her.

“C’mon. Come in.” He starts walking in. “Ya want some coffee?”

“I really don’t.” She hesitates at the doorway, then steps inside.

Half an hour later, they’re sitting in the living room, Ellie drinking a glass of water, Tommy a cup of coffee spiked with whiskey. Ellie notices not much has changed in the house. All of Joel’s old furniture is still in the same place it was the last time she was there to collect some keepsakes, with just a few knick knacks of Tommy’s added here and there. Ellie’s on the couch she had spent so much time on in another life, Tommy reclining in the chair across from her, seeming so much the same and so different from his brother.

“FEDRAs really got the border all locked up like that, huh? Guess I shouldn’t be surprised. They always were stupid bastards.”, he says between sips of his drink.

Ellie just lets her eyebrows raise and lower in quick affirmation, glancing around the room. Not even Joel’s books were out of place.

“So, you and Maria…”, she lets her question trail off.

Tommy leans forward in the chair, resting his elbows on his knees, holding his mug in both his hands, “Yeah, jus’... couldn’t seem to work things out.”

“I’m sorry”, she offers lamely. She means it though. Tommy and Maria had been a constant ever since she had lived in Jackson. It was hard to imagine them apart.

He just snorts gruffly, “It’s o’kay… things don’t always last.”

Ellie almost laughs. She felt like she was learning that every day.

Things fall silent. They had gotten most of it out. How she had gotten injured in the trap. Being rescued by Adelaide and the caravan. The long journey back. 

Tommy had told her who Dina’s patrol partners were, and it choked Ellie up to think of Antony being gone. She had met him her first real day in Jackson, along with so many of her old friends. Along with Dina. He had always been so nice to her. They drank to his memory, his and Anya’s, even though Ellie had never had the pleasure of meeting her. Tommy seemed to think highly of her, making a few quips about how she could have given him a run for his money with a rifle. 

Ellie knows though… there wasn’t much more to talk about except…

“I never shoulda made ya go”, he says, turning his head to look her in the eyes. “Those things I said to ya… That’s what _I’m_ sorry fer.”

Ellie looks at him, a little in shock. “You didn’t… I… No one _made_ me go. I made that choice.”

“Ya wouldn’t a’ even known where ta look if I hadn’t…Jus’ after what she did. Ta Joel. Ta Jesse. Ta us.”, he instinctively rubs his leg, “I couldn’t let it go…”

“Tommy, I don’t blame you.” She thinks that’s true.

“Ya, well… I do.” He keeps looking at her and then quickly looking away, sniffing through one nostril. “I.. I told her _his name,_ Ellie. We were out there, and I jus’... I told her exactly what she was looking fer.”

Ellie sucks in her lips and tries to breathe steadily. She knew that part of the story, having made Tommy recount every detail to her of what happened that night, but it hadn’t gotten easier to hear.

Tommy downs the rest of his drink. “I’m jus’ glad that, in the end, ya didn’t have to do it. That never shoulda been on ya. Good riddance to ‘er anyways.”

She looks up at him, not sure what he means. 

He narrows his eye a little at her confusion. “That ya didn’t have to be the one to kill her, after I put ya through that. The people from Santa Barbara told us she was already dead when ya got there.”

 _Shit._ She hadn’t even thought about the possibility the rumor that she had died might have included news about Abby too. That Tommy had been sitting here thinking “Well at least that murderer is dead”.

She wants to lie. Every compulsion in her is to just let him believe what he already thought. If she said “she’s gone”, that would be true enough, wouldn’t it? Abby was never coming back here, Ellie was sure of that. 

But she can’t. A lie had run wild through her life once before. She wasn’t going to be the cause of another one doing the same.

“Tommy I... ,” well, here goes, “When I went out there, she was still alive.”

The words hit him, and he stills in his chair, his eye fixed on her.

“And… we fought. I.. I made her fight me. That’s how I lost these,” she holds up her hand to show off her lost fingers, having let them go unmentioned earlier, letting him think they were just another injury she’d taken on the road. 

“I was choking her. I had my… my hands around her neck.” A shudder runs through her at the memory. Some part of her will still never let her know that she made the right decision, “and I just couldn’t do it. I didn’t think he’d… I just couldn’t do it.”

His face goes ashen, and they stare at each other. After a moment, he stands, and starts to walk to the stairs, and she gets up to follow him, grabbing his arm.

“I know, look, I know, I said I’d make her pay.” he stops, a foot on the first step, but doesn’t turn to look at her. “If you saw those people who were kept in that place… you know she already did.” Her voice cracks as she tries to continue, "and it wouldn't... it wouldn't bring him..."

Tommy is drawing in heavy breaths, his shoulders shaking. She’s certain he’s going to turn around and start yelling at her. To get out of his house. That he wishes she had died in California, or had the good sense to stay there. That she was no daughter of Joel’s. She tries as best as she can to prepare for another emotional beating for the day.

“I’m glad yer not dead. Key’s by the backdoor.”, he says quietly, and limps up the stairs.

She watches him go, and lets out the breath she had been holding. She retrieves her pack from the couch in the living, and grabs the key on her way out the back, her body just about to give up on her.

Her old house is filled with boxes, she guesses probably Tommy’s thing’s from him and Maria’s place. There’s a thin layer of dust on top of them. He must have moved in pretty soon after she left. Maybe him coming to the farm was the final straw for Maria. 

Her old bed was still there, the mattress bare. That’s all she needs for now. There were no pillows, so Ellie throws her pack down and rests her head on it. It’s been her pillow for six long months. She doesn’t need to be too comfortable, she isn’t expecting to find any sleep anyways. Not after all that had happened. 

Fuck, she needs it though. She needs to turn off her brain, just for a moment. She needs to not think about Dina for one second. 

After everything, isn’t she allowed that?

\---------- 

Dina lays awake in her bed, staring at the ceiling, the sun well past risen. On a normal day, she would have been up by now, tending to JJ, starting breakfast, getting ready for patrol. Today, she knew that wasn’t expected of her, after everything that had happened the day before. She could stay in bed all day if she wanted to, and she was considering it. She didn’t want to face anyone. She didn’t want to face herself.

She was still grasping Ellie’s shirt in her hand, not having let it go since she had fallen back asleep. She tried not to let that mean anything. She tried to reason with herself that she had just grown used to sleeping with it, like a kid with a stuffed animal. Like a safety blanket. 

Lot’s of adult women have safety blankets, she was sure. It didn’t have to mean something that she couldn’t sleep without a part of Ellie with her.

Her mind reeled back to the night before. Had she really said those things to Ellie? Really told her she didn’t want anything from her anymore? 

She knew what her body wanted. The longing she felt had been visceral and immediate both times that they had seen each other. But she had to separate that. She had to protect herself. Ellie could be saying she’s here, she’s staying, and then be gone the next day. 

Ellie could be gone already, for all Dina knew.

These all felt like real solid points she was making, she thought. Ironclad. Fucking concrete. They didn’t make her feel any better.

Had she really told Ellie that she couldn’t see JJ? 

Dina rolls on her side, pulling the shirt up to cover her face at the thought of that. Ellie had been there when he was born. For months, she was every bit a parent to JJ as Dina was. Was it really fair of her to…

No, she had to stay strong. One slip, one minor fuck up, and she knew it could start a landslide she’d never recover from.

When she’s getting dressed, she picks up the photograph of Ellie, Joel, and Shimmer from her desk, holding it in both hands until she can’t look at it anymore. 

She should return it. Ellie would want that back. 

Maybe after a while. Maybe she’ll hold onto it a few more days.

She’s a few steps out of the room, when she stops and curses into the hallway, going back and digging through her clothes on the floor until she finds the shirt she had worn the night before. 

“Fucking pathetic”, she says under her breath, as she pulls the photograph from it’s pocket and places it into her new one.

JJ is in his high chair in the dining when she gets downstairs, happily throwing scrambled eggs in the air, Mitchell beside him dutifully returning them to his plate. Music is playing from the old tape player, as it always was in the house, something Dina enjoyed about living there.

“Hey ya goober,” Dina says, kissing JJ on the cheek as she walks by to sit down, “ya teaching grandpa how to paint ceilings?”

“He’s a real expert”, Mitchell says, scooping up more egg and trying to navigate it into JJ’s laughing mouth.

Robin walks in and sets a plate of eggs, a piece of toast, and a cup of water with a pill in front Dina. “Eat up and take that. You had a day yesterday.” 

Dina smiles at her. She’s not wrong. She takes the pill, and starts eating the toast, the morning carrying on nicely, normally, like her world hadn’t turned upside down, again, the day before. No one brings up what happened on the patrol. No one mentions Ellie. 

After Mitchell has gone off to the wood shop and Dina and Robin are cleaning up, Robin softly touches Dina’s hand. 

“How are you, really?” 

Dina turns her hand over to hold Robins, and sighs. “I don’t know… I really don’t.” 

Robin hugs her around the shoulder, “Well, if you need to talk about it, we’re here”. The older woman starts to get ready to leave for her shift at the clinic. “Will you be ok here alone today? I can take JJ with me like I normally do, they love him at work.”

Dina goes and picks her son up from the highchair and walks over to Robin, “No, we’ll be fine. Thank you though, for everything.”

Robin reaches out and places her hand on Dina’s cheek, giving her a doting smile, “Of course, sweetheart. You’re family.” She starts to head out the door, but stops, and turns around, a bit hesitantly.

“I was going to wait to tell you, but…”, 

Well fuck, what now. Dina thinks to herself.

“Maria came by before you woke up to talk to Mitchell. She… she wants to have Ellie start working shifts in the wood shop. Said Ellie has to do something, and she doesn’t want to have her going out on patrols.”

Dina can feel something uneasy building up inside of her. Of course Ellie knows Mitchell runs the shop. Is she trying to use that to stay close to Dina? After what Dina had said to her last night? 

She feels like her privacy is being infringed on. Like she’s being taken advantage of. Her eyebrows go down in a small scowl, and she notices she’s bouncing JJ a little more rapidly than she normally would.

“Um… do you know if Ellie asked to be put on that?”, she pushes, trying to sound calm.

Robin shakes her head noncommittally, “I’m really not sure. Jonathan moved on a month back and Mitchell has been looking for a new hand. Maria said that Ellie worked on wall repair for a while so she’d be a good fit? I just thought you should know.”

That was true. Mitchell had been in dire need of help since his last apprentice had left Jackson to move to a different settlement, and Ellie had worked for a while on the wall repair shifts before moving full time to the Patrol rotations. Still, Dina didn’t like it. 

“I have to leave, goodbye my sweeties” Robin says, kissing both Dina and JJ on the cheeks before Dina can respond, and walking out the door.

Dina paces the room, holding JJ. Was Maria up to something? That didn’t seem like her. She mostly kept to her own business and expected others to do the same unless it was going to affect the town in some way. Maybe it was more innocent than Dina was letting herself imagine.

As she was brewing conspiracy theories, the tape player turns to a new track, and Dina stops walking as soon as she hears it.

She just can’t escape Ellie Fucking Williams.

The song is different from the way Ellie had played it. Faster, more upbeat, with a synthetic backing, but it’s unmistakable, and Dina can’t fucking stand to hear listen to it. 

She slams down on the stop button. If it were playing on the stereo in her bedroom, she probably would have just destroyed the thing. 

She stays in the rest of the day, only going out briefly to pay her respects to Anya’s family like she had intended. She doesn’t see Ellie anywhere around while she’s walking, and the thought comes to her that maybe she really had left.

The thought makes her just as uneasy as Ellie being around.

\----------

In the next two weeks, Dina tries to keep as much distance as she can from Ellie, but it’s like the girl knows where she’s going to be… or sometimes maybe Dina lingers in a place, curious to see if Ellie will show up eventually. She’s not sure which of the two it is. Could be either really. 

Who’s to say?

To Ellie’s credit, she never tries to talk to her. If Dina walks into a shop Ellie’s in, Ellie will leave, waiting until she won’t have to slip close to Dina to do it. Ellie stopped eating in the middle of a meal at the Tipsy Bison one night and went out the back when she caught sight of Dina. Sometimes their eyes will meet, but Ellie’s will always be the first to break away.

Ellie was just being so… respectful of her. Of her decision. 

Dina didn’t know what she had expected Ellie to do. She thinks she probably thought Ellie would just run. Like she had last time. Run away and leave Dina to her life alone. But here she still was, every day. Still in town. Working, keeping her head down.

Staying.

Was this really better? Dina didn’t feel any less alone now than she had when Ellie was gone. Now Ellie was just here, but not. 

Maria had offered Dina her spot back on patrol, but Dina had declined, at least for now. She was having a hard time shaking the fear that had gripped her when she was so sure she was going to die, of leaving JJ motherless, selfish as she thought it was to let others go in her place. 

Maria hadn’t argued with her or tried to force her. She understood. Patrol was dangerous. Maria had always said if someone’s heart and mind weren’t in it then they shouldn’t be out there.

Dina thought she would find the confines of the walls stifling, like she had before, and in some ways she still did, but she’s not as weighed down by it as she was before. She works shifts at the clinic again alongside Robin. In the garden and the greenhouse. Some along Wall Repair, figuring she’ll go back to patrol eventually. She doesn’t know what’s changed.

She comes by the wood shop sometimes, and Ellie will be in the back, toiling away at something, her sleeves rolled up around her biceps, sweat on her forehead. Dina’s isn’t sure why she comes. Visiting Mitchell while he worked isn’t something she had done much of before, and he seems to notice it isn’t her purpose in doing it now, though he never says so. 

She doesn’t want to admit to herself that maybe the reason she does it was because she can just look at Ellie then, when Ellie doesn’t know she’s there, too busy to look up from her work. 

When Ellie can't run away from her. 

She can just look at how she had changed in the last months. Ellie’s so much thinner now, and she walks with a noticeable hitch in her step on her right side, like something hasn’t healed right. And her hand. One of the two hands that Dina still thinks about when she imagines hands touching her had been mutilated. The lower two fingers torn off part of the way down, and a jagged scar running along the palm and the back. She can’t help but wonder what caused the injuries, which makes her feel a rush of different things from wanting to just run over and hold her to wanting to slap her to just pitying her. 

Just as noticeable were the ways Ellie was still the same. Dina can still see the confidence in her movements when she’s doing a task. That dopey grin when she accomplishes something. She could see her lips curl into a smile sometimes, and could imagine she had thought of a stupid pun. Or maybe she was thinking of JJ. 

Or maybe she was thinking of her

She still seems, in so many ways, from Dina’s vantage at the front of the shop, like her Ellie, and that makes Dina both happy and heartbroken. 

Dina knew she didn’t trust Ellie anymore, and she didn’t know if that could ever be repaired.

But she couldn’t deny the part of herself that was so hopelessly drawn to her that she snuck to the wood shop just to look at her either. Just to be around her.

So they just stayed apart, and the days went on, the two orbiting around each other but never speaking.

In those weeks, the first heavy snowstorm of the season hits, and it blankets the entire town in a span of hours. 

Dina’s left the clinic, going to the wood shop to see if Mitchell has any messages to relay to Robin before she goes home. Her hood is pulled up tight around her head, and it’s hard to see where she’s going. There are people on the streets rushing to get back to their houses, to batten down for the night. 

She’s getting her bearings when the crunch of snow alerts her to someone running, and the person bumps into her. 

“Watch out assho-”, Dina starts, but finds herself looking into Ellie’s face.

“I’m s-sorry”, Ellie stammers out before running off in the direction of her house, but Dina had already seen it. 

That look. 

That nowhere look in Ellie’s eyes.

That night, lying in bed, gripping Ellie’s shirt close to her chest, she looks at the smiling picture of Ellie for the first time since the night she was told Ellie had “died”. The winds had slowed, but a soft snowfall continued. 

She couldn’t get that look on Ellie’s face out of her head. 

Fuck. _Fuck._

That same face she had the first snow of the last year, when she had taken so long to come back from the farm, that Dina only realized later was the first time Ellie had suffered an episode. 

This weather brought Ellie straight back to the night Joel died.

Dina had thought so much about that night. About how something was so clearly wrong when Ellie had gotten back, but Dina had just let it go. She hadn’t pressed. How many other times had she done that? How many times could she have held tighter, but instead let Ellie slip farther away from her?

What was it she had said after Ellie’s attack in the barn?

_“Haven’t had any excitement in awhile, hmm?”_

Ellie had been screaming on the ground only seconds ago, and she had tried to make a joke, like it wasn’t that serious. Like she could make it go away with a quip.

She looks out the window at the falling snow.

_Fuck._

\----------

There’s as much wood in the heater as will burn, but the one room house still felt cold. 

Ellie wondered if it had always been like this, or if it was just her mind playing tricks on her. 

Tommy had stopped by earlier to drop off some food for her, but like every night of the past two weeks, that had been about the extent of their exchange. He still wouldn’t say much to her. 

She couldn’t blame him. She had just walked back into his already fractured life and chipped in another crack. But they were making progress. Another pleasantry here and there. A question about the other’s day. Maybe there’d be a joke eventually. A story. Ellie didn’t have much left at this point. She didn’t want to lose the one bit of family she still had.

She had been doing her best to avoid Dina, she really had. She wanted to give her what she wanted. She hoped that in time that maybe it would be like with Tommy. Maybe Dina would wave at her, or just say hi. Then another day Dina would ask how things were going. Maybe someday they could get back to being friends. She couldn’t really hope for anything more than that.

She didn’t really think _“watch out, asshole”_ really counted as that first step though. 

Especially not when she was sure Dina had seen…

Seen that she wasn’t better, not completely.

Ellie sat with her back against the headboard of the bed, her knees pulled up to her chest, arms wrapped around them. It’s late, and dark, and she supposes she probably won’t sleep at all. She’s covered in as many blankets as she could find, for both the warmth and the weight. She needed to feel like something… just anything like something was holding her. 

God, she wished someone would hold her. 

She hadn’t had an episode since Santa Barbara. She had hoped, deep in some secret place, that they were gone. That she had found some sort of closure complete enough to wipe them away from her head.

But then the snow started to fall, and someone dropped a hammer in the wood shop, and they came tumbling back. Not like before. Not with the same intensity. She didn’t find herself screaming on the floor or blacked out on the trail, huddled against a tree for hours. There weren’t any visions. 

It was more just a feeling. That same feeling of dread, and despair, and emptiness.

And it had stayed with her all night.

And Dina had seen it written across her face.

Fuck, Dina must think she’s such a freak. That after all this time she’s still stuck in that same place. How can she ever hope to move forward like this? Hope to ever build anything again?

Fuck.

She’s still cursing herself when there’s three knocks on the door.

Ellie forces herself up on the bed and over to the door, not looking forward to another round of pleasantries with her uncle, bracing herself for the cold when she opens it.

“Tommy, I don’t want-”

Standing there, hand raised to knock again, is Dina, shivering in the cold.

Ellie can feel her heart start to pound and a lump form in her throat. She’s too dumbstruck to even invite her inside from the snow, just taking a step back as Dina lets herself in.

Ellie stands awkwardly to the side as Dina takes off her boots and her coat, glancing around, not seeming to pay much mind to the state of the place. There are still Tommy’s boxes stacked up everywhere. Ellie hasn’t gotten around to making it “her’s” again yet. She doesn’t really have anything left of her own anyways, except what’s at the farm house, and she can’t bring herself to go back there.

“I, uh… haven’t-”, Dina gives her a look that tells her she’s not interested in whatever she was about to say. 

Ellie doesn’t know what else to do, so she goes to grab a glass of water from the sink, and pours one for Dina as well. When she turns back around Dina has taken off the pullover she was wearing as well, dropping it on top of her coat. Ellie just looks at her in confusion, as Dina wordlessly continues to shed layers. 

Her socks.

Her button up.

Ellie’s face turns bright red when Dina unbuttons her jeans and slides them off her legs, despite how many times Ellie has seen her completely naked.

She’s sure this isn’t really happening. That she had been able to fall asleep and instead of some horrible nightmare like she usually had on a night that she had an episode, she was instead having one of the many dreams she had where she just got to be with Dina again.

Dina stands in front of her then in an outfit Ellie has seen so many times before. So many times that it had become mundane to her. Just a part of everyday life. A tank top. Boxer shorts. Just like what Ellie’s in now. The outfit Dina sleeps in.

Now she thinks she hasn’t ever seen something more beautiful.

“Dina, what are you doing…?”, Ellie whispers.

Dina looks into her eyes for a moment, something sad but certain on her face, and walks over to her, taking the glasses from her and sets them on the counter. She takes Ellie’s ruined hand, and leads her over to the bed.

Ellie pauses at the edge, but Dina just patiently waits for her until she sits down. Dina tilts her head, and Ellie moves to the side that had been her own when they had shared a bed, and watches as Dina crawls in next to her, covering them both under the mound of blankets.

They face each other on their sides for a brief moment, green eyes searching brown, before Ellie can feel Dina urge her to turn over, and she does as Dina silently asks. Once Ellie’s back is to her, she feels Dina pull herself right up against her, tucking her legs up behind Ellie's and wrapping her arm around her. Dina starts softly stroking Ellie's arm, soothing her face, running her nails slowly through her hair.

Ellie tenses when Dina’s hand moves over her lost fingers, but Dina just softly touches them, brushing her own fingertips over the healed over nubs, before moving along.

Ellie knows she’s not supposed to speak. That this isn’t forgiveness. She doesn’t think she’d be able to find the right words anyways. Her heart feels like it’s going to burst from her chest at any moment.

It’s like Dina knew. Like she knew that Ellie needed someone. 

That Ellie needed her.

And despite everything Ellie had done, Dina was here, holding her. 

Ellie knows anew in that moment what she’s known since the first moment she had been able to admit it to herself. She’ll never love anyone else. 

There will only ever be Dina.

Ellie doesn’t know why, but she starts crying. A soft whimper escapes her mouth, and a few tears fall from her eyes. Before she can move to wipe them away, Dina has already gently done it.

She feels Dina nestle her head against her back and settle her hand down on top of hers, and for the first time that Ellie has had an episode, she closes her eyes and sleeps through the night.

When she wakes in the morning, Dina is gone, but Ellie can still feel her against her. Warm and safe.

That…

That was a good first step.

\----------

Dina closes the front door quietly in the early hours of the morning, the sun barely up, hoping no one is awake. Where she’s been all night is not a question she wants to answer.

Even when the answer makes her heart race.

Especially because the answer makes her heart race.

As she moves towards the stairs, she finds herself stopping by the stereo. She looks down at it, her tongue against her cheek, and searches the tapes for the one that had been playing the day after Ellie had come back. Finding it, she slowly makes her way up the stairs, checks that JJ is still asleep, and heads into her room, sitting down on her bed, and trying to calm her body.

She had left while Ellie was still asleep. She didn’t want to risk having to talk about what had happened. Having to explain herself. 

It didn’t have to mean anything.

She knew Ellie was going through something, and so she did something about it. That was all. 

It didn't matter now that she could smell Ellie on her and she felt drunk on it.

Nothing changed. It didn't have to mean anything.

It didn't.

Before Dina had left, she had the urge to lean over and kiss Ellie’s cheek. She almost did. Just like had wanted to when they had faced each other in bed, before she had made Ellie turn over.

But she was glad now she hadn’t. She had only gone because she had seen Ellie’s face out there in the snow, and she wanted to help her. Not to kiss her. Not to be _with_ her. 

She looks down at the tape in her hands and studies it. She’s not entirely sure what compelled her to grab it, but she gets up and puts it in her stereo, turns the volume down so it doesn’t wake any one, and finds the track she’s searching for.

She sits back on the bed, closes her eyes, and lets the song wash over her. Just like before, it’s so different than when Ellie had played it, even though she can tell why Ellie had liked it. Had chosen it to recompose.

When it’s done, she hits the rewind button, and listens to it again.

And again.

And again.

After the fourth time, she picks up her guitar and rests it on her lap. She hums the opening note, and searches the frets until she finds the right chord. She tries to remember exactly how Ellie had played it, how she had plucked out the single notes, but it had been half a year, and she isn't as good as Ellie was.

And so much wrong had happened between then and now. 

She settles on just a simple establishing strum of the opening chords, and starts to sing the first words softly to herself, the ghost of tears pooling in the rims of her eyes but a smile on her lips, when she hears JJ starting to grow restless in his nursery.

She sets her guitar against the door frame to go tend to him, resolving to learn it later.

She wants to hear it again, the way Ellie had played it, even if it doesn't sound the same it did before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These kids. What are they gonna do with each other.
> 
> The song I listened to a lot while writing this was "Running When You Call My Name", by HAIM. 
> 
> The song that Dina listens to is not "Take On Me", though if it helps you imagine the story, that's cool. Whatever gets you there.
> 
> Find me on [Tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/whiskeytango8686) . Send a writing prompt for this series if you'd like, maybe I'll run with it.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The right knife.
> 
> Words needed to be said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't really have much to say besides another huge thank you to everyone. I was beginning to think somewhere around chapter 5 that this was going to be a 10 chapter story with maybe an epilogue chapter, but that's obviously not how things are turning out now. Hope everyone is ok sticking along for the ride for a bit longer.

“Good god, Ellie, what is tha’?”

Ellie looks down at the masterpiece in her hands, and then back up at Joel.

“It’s a dinosaur.”

“Is it… dyin’?”

Ellie scoffs, holding it up so he can see it better. “No, it’s attacking. Like it’s about to take down it’s weaker dinosaur cousin.” She imitates the dinosaur lunging, hand in the air, teeth bared. 

Joel just stares at her, and lets out an exaggerated sigh. “Well… it _was_ a fine piece a’ basswood.”

Ellie huffs out, and goes back to whittling away at it. “Everybody’s a fuckin’ critic.”

They were in the room Joel had made into his workshop, on the second story of his house. Sun was filtering in through the blinds of the open windows, the soft breeze blowing small strips of wood that fell from their separate projects around the floor. The leaves outside hadn't started to change yet, but the air had the smell of summer turning into fall.

Before the outbreak, Joel told her he had been in carpentry, putting up houses, buildings, whatever job he could get. He still did that kind of work around Jackson when extra hands were called for, but he had mostly taken up woodworking now as a hobby. 

He had started with carving, simple things at first, plaques that he hung around the house and made Ellie stand and look at while he watched her stand and look at them, hands proudly on his hips. Then he’d soon moved on to more complicated work, like he got bored with the original fare too quickly. 

He was carving out an eagle now. Said he wanted to do a bear next. Maybe a cowboy some day.

He also fancied himself quite the guitar maker, though he’d only done one so far, and the strings all sat uneven on the bridge, hovering over the fretboard at different heights. He said he just needed to re-notch the nut in the neck, but he seemed pretty embarrassed when he tried to play it and it didn’t sound all that great. He’d already gotten to work on a second one.

Ellie had been busying herself around the town with work rotations and keeping up with the school work she’d been given, though it wasn’t nearly as rigorous as the work at the Academies in Boston had been. She didn’t like it any better though. It seemed like such a waste of time to her. Why bother with all this, when she knows she just wants to end up on Patrol Duty eventually? 

What’s she going to do, bore an infected to death?

_“I hear your very loud and informed argument, Sir Clicker, but have you ever considered that in fact, mitochondria…”_

Fucking ridiculous.

But school was one of the places she got to see her new friends, and she enjoyed that part. Spending time with Jesse, and Antony and DeShawn, and with Cat, who was always touching her arm when they talked, which she couldn’t decide if she liked or not.

And Dina. 

Man, she fucking _loved_ hanging out with Dina. Whenever they were together, it was like all Ellie did was smile and laugh her head off. She couldn't remember when she’d ever felt so light. So alive. She didn’t know if she’d ever felt that way.

All of her friends were out at the lake today, and they had invited her to go along with them one last time before it started to get too cold, but she had already told Joel she would spend the afternoon with him. They hadn’t been seeing much of each other, with both of them busy with their new duties, and all the time Ellie had been spending with the new people, and she felt like she needed to throw the old man a bone.

He said he could show her how to whittle, which she thought would be interesting enough.

Fucking. _Mistaken._

“Ya should really use one of my knives”, he says to her, looking up from his eagle as she carves huge, unplanned chunks away from her dinosaur. 

“This is working fine,” she replied, working at the softwood with her switchblade.

He sighed, “I’m sure it is, but yer gonna dull the blade. That thing ain’t made for this kinda work.”

She stops and looks up at him, closing up the switchblade, “Can’t I just sharpen it?”

“Can’t put a knick back innit.”, he says, handing her a carving knife off of his work table, handle first. She reaches to take it, but he doesn’t let go when she grabs it.

She rolls her eyes, and lets out a pained, “Thaaaank you.”

He lets the knife go with a self-satisfied smile, “Yer welcome.”

They both go back to their projects, Joel quiet, an occasional _“shit”_ or _“motherfucker”_ coming from Ellie as she lops off a piece she hadn’t meant to.

“So, uh… what’re all yer friends doin’ today?”, Joel asks eventually, as he’s leaning back to examine his work on the eagles beak, blowing away some loose wood.

“They’re, _fuck,_ they’re out swimming at the lake”, she says, her tongue sticking out the side of her mouth in concentration.

“You wishin’ you had gone with ‘em?”, he chuckles as one of the dinosaurs arms falls to the floor.

Honestly, she didn’t. Things had gotten a little weird lately. There had been a bit of a dynamic shift.

“No, I’m good here.”, she says picking the arm up, “You got any glue?”

He hands her a bottle of wood glue from a cabinet. “Really?”

“Yeah, really.”

“Why’s that?”

She focuses in on gluing down the arm, not wanting to look at him, to give herself away. “Um… I think Jesse and Dina started dating.”

Joel nods, like he understands. “Oh… and ya don’t… like that?”

“What?”, she looks up at him incredulously, and the arm falls to the floor again, _“Fuck!”_

“That make you feel jealous or somethin’?”, he asks

“No! It’s not… It’s not like that.”, she thinks her face is probably as red as it can possibly get.

“Ain’t nothing wrong with it, that Jesse is a hand-”

“NO! Fuck no! It’s just-It’s fucking weird, you know? For two of your friends to start dating. Like… I don’t know where I fit in anymore.”

“Ah”, he says, trying to give her his best fatherly understanding voice, “I getcha.”

“It’s like… Dina and I were hanging out all the time, and it was great, and we could spend all this time together, and now, it’s just so different.” She sighs and looks at the floor again, “I feel like I did-”

“ ey kiddo, you didn’t do nothin’. Things just change. And just cause Dina’s hanging out more with Jesse now, that don’t mean she feels any different about you.”

Ellie keeps glancing between the floor and Joel, “are… you sure?”

“Yeah, kiddo, I’m sure.”

Ellie taps her foot on the floor next to the discarded dinosaur arm. 

“Should we like… fuckin’ hug now or something?”

Joel laughs, “Best not. Don’t wanna ruin the moment.”

Ellie smiles, and they both get back to carving.

A few minute later, Joel says,

“I gotta go grab my glasses, feel like I can’t see a fuckin’ thing.”

He leaves the room, grumbling about how old he’s getting, Ellie watching him go.

They spend the rest of the daylight hours carving away, until Joel’s eagle is looking mighty majestic, and Ellie’s dinosaur is mostly just wood scraps on the floor.

They plan to watch a movie together, but before they get it started, there’s a knock outside, coming from Ellie’s house. Dina is out waiting in front of Ellie’s door, looking for her.

Joel looks down at Ellie and says, 

“Well, go on then, git”

She hesitates for a moment, but then runs out the door calling to Dina, and Joel smiles as he watches her go.

\----------

Perfect, exact measurements were never exactly her specialty. She hadn’t been great at math in the classes in the Military Academies, or at the school here in Jackson. She liked to think it was because she was an artist and couldn’t be constrained by such things, but she knew it was really because she didn’t have the patience for them.

Working in the wood shop was teaching Ellie the virtues of patience in every wasted piece of lumber she cut too short, every angle she trimmed too wide, every join she constructed too loose. 

_“Measure twice, cut once”,_ she could hear Joel saying to her, from her disastrous attempts at learning woodworking with him. 

She could also hear Mitchell saying it to her, nearly every day. The man exuded patience, but Ellie thought she could see a glimmer of something twitching in his eye when he heard her say, “So I guess I need to start over” for the second or third time in a day.

Working with the man had been more than a little awkward. She had once known him just as Jesse’s dad. Then as essentially an inlaw, and the grandfather to her… to Dina’s son. Now he was just her boss. She had always liked him fine, appreciating the way he seemed to approach things. He never used ten words if five would do, and even then he’d tried to get by with three. It had been almost hard to see how he and Jesse could have been related, with how outgoing Jesse had been, but Jesse was also Mitchell’s spitting image, so there was no mistaking it. 

The thing that Ellie had liked best about Mitchell, which of course had come later, was how much he cared about Dina and JJ. He didn’t dote on them, that wasn’t his way. But Ellie could tell. It reminded her of the way Joel was with her, before things had turned. 

The hardest part about working in the shop wasn’t the work itself, she was actually getting better at that. It seemed like every day she was walking away with less splinters and more confidence that she could actually do the job. No, the hardest part was walking in and out each day without asking Mitchell about JJ. 

It was a special kind of torture, knowing that he was going home every night, and there the lil’ Potato was, laughing, eating, burping, pulling on hair, playing with his blocks. Just being there. Growing up. Ellie imagined he was crawling by now. She tried not to picture the first moment it happened, the excitement on Dina’s face as she saw him, as she got down on her hands and knees and called him over to her. 

She didn’t want to imagine what that had been like because she should have been there too. There were going to be so many things she didn’t want to imagine. 

And she certainly didn’t feel like she could ask Mitchell about them. Maria definitely had the final say on things in Jackson, but Mitchell’s skills weren’t something that could be easily replaced, and he could have gotten away with turning down Maria’s request to have Ellie come work there. Ellie probably would have found herself on stable cleaning with the teenagers, or worse, Farm Rotation. 

Fucking Farm Rotation. 

Instead he’d opened up his shop and let her in. That can’t have been an easy choice. She can’t imagine he liked her anymore, or even respected her.

So, every day she was there waiting for him when he arrived, worked as hard as she could, didn’t leave until he was ready to go, and didn’t ask any questions that weren’t about woodworking. She just didn’t feel like she had the right.

The best and worst days in the shop were the ones when Dina stopped by to talk to Mitchell. Ellie was making a point of keeping her distance, like Dina had wanted, but she couldn’t exactly just up and leave her shift just because Dina came by. So she kept her head down and just worked and worked and worked. 

Those were the best days because she could glance up every once in a while and she would see Dina was looking at her, though they would both look away just as fast. 

They were the worst because they were the ones when Ellie fucked up the most stuff. Dina always was her biggest distraction.

It was two days after the snow storm, since Ellie had suffered her episode, since Dina had come to her that night. Despite what the initial weather had stirred up in her, she was feeling fairly calm, going through her work and would find herself smiling a little. She hadn’t seen Dina since, and she knew it wasn’t like things were back to normal now, or if they ever would be, but it felt like a start. 

Mitchell was examining a cabinet he had Ellie working on, and his “hmms” and “hurms” actually didn’t sound dissatisfied. Ellie was feeling pretty damn proud of herself. She doesn’t even notice Dina walk in.

“Hey”, Ellie turns to see her and then quickly spins back around, assuming she’s speaking to Mitchell.

Mitchell gives Dina the smallest nod and keeps inspecting the cabinet, while Dina continues. 

“Ellie..”, Ellie slowly turns back to her, wanting to point at herself as if to say, this Ellie?

“Could we talk, maybe outside?”

Ellie looks back at Mitchell, not wanting to seem like she’s slacking at work, but is also about to jump out of her chair and run out the door.

Dina looks at Mitchell and says “I’ll only steal her for a minute.”

The man doesn’t seem to mind, so Ellie grabs her jacket and follows Dina out into the street.

They stand, a few feet apart, hands deep in their pockets, both seeming like they’re waiting for the other to start.

“So… hey”, Dina finally says.

“Hey”, Ellie gazes down at the snow she’s toeing around, trying to look anywhere not at Dina.

“I-”

“I-”, they both start, and then nervously laugh and just look at each other, the strangeness of not being able to just talk openly with each other like they used to settling in. This used to be so easy between them.

Eventually Ellie pushes her pockets out at Dina, “You go.”

Dina sucks in a breath, and looks around, “How’s… how’s working in the shop?”

“Uh…”, Ellie scratches her ear, one eye closed, “you know, it’s good. It’s really good. I’m learning a lot from Mitch-”

“Would you want to have dinner with me tonight?” Dina blurts out, not meeting Ellie’s eyes as they shoot wide.

“Like at… Robin and Mitchell’s?”, Ellie asks, a little hopeful. Maybe Dina’s changed her mind. Maybe she’s going to let her see JJ?

Dina softly kicks a little snow with a small laugh, “Fuck, no, that’d be so awkward.”

Ellie deflates a little, but the thought of having dinner with Dina is still forcing her to have to try not to smile like an idiot. “We could at my place, but I don’t really have a table, or anywhere to sit. Or plates. Or-”

“I was thinking at the diner, actually.”, Dina says, tilting her head up just a little to look at Ellie.

“The… Tipsy Bison?”

Dina seems a little flustered, “Yeah, but not like… It’s not a date. Or anything.”

Ellie all of a sudden finds her own shoelaces just fascinating to look at.

“I just think…”, Dina sighs, like she doesn’t want to continue, “that we should probably talk? About what happened the other night?

Ellie nods, hoping she sounds collected, “Yeah, for sure.”

“So… meet you there? Just after your shift?”

Ellie panics a little, thinking about how she looks. How she smells. “Uh, I should probably go back and change first, get cleaned up.”

“You look gr-”, Dina swallows her words, and kicks some more snow, “Yeah, of course. I’ll get us a booth, and just whenever you’re ready, I’ll see you there?” 

“Yeah, sounds good. I’ll see you there.” What was that she almost said?

Dina nods a few times, hesitating, then starts to turn to leave, “Alright… bye, Ellie.”

Ellie raises her hand to wave a little, “Yeah, bye Dina.”

Ellie watches her walk a ways down the street before going back into the shop. Mitchell is lightly sanding away at some of the cabinet she had made, but since it wasn’t sitting at her bench completely disassembled, she figured he must be fairly happy with it.

Dinner. Tonight. With Dina. She takes a second to check how she smells. Already not great. Maybe Mitchell will let her off just a couple minutes early so she can rush home and try to clean up in time not to be late? Maybe if she runs fast enough she can get there and back and only be a few minutes behind?

The rest of Ellie’s day is filled with “maybes” and splinters, the cabinet from earlier her only successful project.

\----------

JJ learning to crawl had been both a blessing and a curse, though undeniably one of the happiest days of Dina’s life. She had been sitting at the dining room table, tinkering with a pair of walkie-talkies that someone on watch had given her. She figured Maria must not have known about that, otherwise they wouldn’t have wound up in her hands. They had just started to buzz when she heard Robin gasp loudly in the living room. She shot up, thinking something was wrong, only to find JJ, slowly making his way across the rug towards his grandmother. His arms straight and wobbly, his face unsure, focused entirely on the task at hand, like any moment the floor would fall out from under him. Dina wanted to cry out to him, but instead she just held one hand over her mouth, the other on her hip, and watched silently, happy tears falling on her fingers, as her son crossed the floor to Robin and started tugging on her dress. She spent the rest of the afternoon on the floor with him, playing with him, the excitement of him crawling to her only growing each time he did it. It had been a great day. 

The only thing missing had been Ellie.

That had been in early August. Since then, the joy of JJ finding his ability to move on his own had worn off a bit. He just wouldn’t stop moving. He couldn’t sit still for more than a few minutes. He wanted to be everywhere and nowhere it seemed like. Like there wasn’t a place in the world he didn’t want to explore. It was heartwarming and frustrating in equal degrees. Dina was looking forward to and dreading the day he learned to stand on his own, much less the day he learned to walk. 

She knew just one of these days she would walk into his nursery and he would be laughing like a lunatic on the floor, toys scattered everywhere, having learned he was big enough and able enough to make an escape from his crib. Mitchell had constructed gates for the top and bottom of the stairs just for that eventuality.

Though some of the milestones were frightening in their own way, when JJ had said his first word hadn’t been one of those times. It was the night of Ellie’s “funeral”, and she was in his nursery, trying to rock him to sleep. His hand was holding her shirt and he seemed like he almost passed out, when he gurgled out “mama” quietly. Dina was barely sure she had even heard it until he said it again even quieter before falling asleep. It was the first time she had smiled in days.

Now he was crawling around her bedroom floor, Olly in hand, one of her bras on his head, giggling his little head off, while Dina sat at her desk, facing the small mirror propped up on it. She hadn’t had any rotation shifts that day, and so had steeled herself, deciding it was time. They needed to talk about… what she had decided to do. The other night. 

What it meant. 

What it didn’t mean.

Ellie had been back for weeks now, and Dina just didn’t think she could do _this._ This hovering around each other, not speaking, pretending like the other didn’t exist. They had been so important to each other. The most important person to each other, for years before they even were able to admit that it was more than friendship that drew them together. 

Dina still felt so angry sometimes when she thought of Ellie, when she saw her. It was painful to see her around the streets after so long, a walking reminder of everything that Dina had lost. But the anger was different. It wasn’t as sharp as it was when Ellie had first come back, softening slowly around the edges. Nothing at all like that first day. It made her wonder if she would look at her someday, and she wouldn’t feel anger at all, wouldn’t see the woman who walked out of her life. 

If she would just see Ellie.

Whatever they could or couldn’t be again, Dina just knew she didn’t want them to be _this._

She didn’t want to know Ellie was in pain, and the only way she could think to help was to go to her in the middle of the night and lay with her, but never talk about it, then or afterwards.

How did that really help either of them?

So she had decided they were going to fucking talk, and maybe things would go well and maybe they wouldn’t. But they would at least talk. Tonight.

Sitting there, her face reflected back in the glass, she thought she looked older now than the last time she had really looked at herself. Nothing anyone else would notice. Just different. 

Since she left the farm, she had gone back to wearing her hair the way she had most of her life. Her thick black waves held in a loose bun high on the back of her head, sometimes falling down into a ponytail, slightly messy, a few random strands hanging in front of her ears. She wasn’t sure why she had gone back to that style. 

Just needed a change, she supposed, however minor.

As she sat looking in the mirror, she lifted her hand and delicately pulled some of the shorter layers of her hair loose from the bun with her fingers, letting them fall over the left side of her face. It wasn’t exactly the same. She had worn her bun lower on her head then, closer to the nape of her neck, and her hair had grown out longer now, but the effect was very much the same. 

A small smile creeps up her lips. 

Ellie had loved it when she had started wearing it this way.

She brushes the hair away from her eyes, and for a moment it feels like all those times Ellie had done it.

She clears her throat, and pulls the loose hair back, putting it back into the bun, then picks up JJ, throwing the bra off his head, and takes him downstairs to an awaiting Robin. 

She tells her she’s going out for dinner, kisses the two of them goodbye, and leaves. 

She’ll be early, but her nerves won’t let her wait any longer.

\----------

“Hey”

The sound brings Dina out of her thoughts, and she turns to see Ellie standing at the edge of the booth.

“Oh hey”, Dina says, a little flustered that she was caught daydreaming, “You came.”

Ellie raises her eyebrows, “Yeah… I said I would”

 _You’ve said a lot of things,_ a vindictive part of Dina wants to shoot back. “Yeah, you did. You want to sit down?”

“Sure”, Ellie takes off her coat and tosses it into the booth, awkwardly scooting in across from her. “You been waiting long?”

“No, pretty much just got here.” Dina lies. She’s been sitting there for over an hour, arriving way earlier than they had agreed to.

Ellie cracks some of her knuckles, a classic Williams nervous tick, “I’m sorry I was a little late. Mitchell had me working on this-”

“Really, it’s fine. I pretty much just sat down.”, Dina smiles at her a little as Ellie glances down at the empty glass in front of her.

The bartender comes by with a glass of water and sets it in front of Ellie, asking “Can I get you anything?” 

“Umm… I think I’m good with just the water for now, thanks.”

Dina cocks an eyebrow at her. Ellie almost never turns down a real drink.

The bartender turns to her and asks, “Another double?”

This time it’s Ellie’s turn to cock an eyebrow. 

Dina’s voice comes out a little rushed, “No, I’ll just stick with the one.”

The bartender shrugs and walks away as Dina can feel the heat rising in her cheeks, feeling like she’s been caught.

Ellie turns back to her from watching him go, “Just sat down, huh?”

“Shut up.”

“No, it’s just he said _‘another_ dou-”

“Shut up!”

“Which was weird because you said you had ‘just sat-”

_“Shut. Up.”_

The two young women share a brief smile at each from across the table, before breaking away. For a moment it had been almost normal again. Like things could be normal again. But for both of them, it had only been the moment.

She can feel the table vibrating slightly as Ellie taps her foot. “So… that wasn’t Seth.”

Dina smirks, “Yeah, I don’t know where Seth has gotten off to these days. That guy's name is Charlie or Chaz or something. Seems like he’s always the one working here.”

Ellie makes a slight face, her eyebrows furrowing, “Sounds like… you’ve been coming here a lot?”

“I guess…”, Dina says, picking at her fingers, “More than I used to.”

They meet eyes for a moment, then both go back to looking at the table or the utensils or the saltshaker or anything that isn’t each other.

“Cat’s here a lot.” She says dismissively, just to say something. She just doesn’t like the silence and doesn’t want to get to what she asked Ellie here for yet.

Ellie snorts, scratching at the table “I’ll bet. She always liked ‘going out’ “, she gives the term air quotes. “She never liked just hanging out at home or anything.”

Dina watches Ellies fingers move.

“You don’t think we’ll see her tonight, do you?”, Ellie says, scanning the bar.

“Fuck, I hope not.” Dina says under her breath. 

Ellie looks back to her with that dopey smirk, she knows Dina has never liked Cat.

The sight of that silly look on Ellie’s face sends a little jolt through Dina.

“Who knows, maybe if you stick around for a bit, you and her can reconnect?” Dina regrets the words and the way she said them the second they leave her mouth. She doesn’t even know why she said it.

Ellie looks immediately stunned, but tries to hide it, laughing a small laugh with no humor behind it.

“Yeah… yeah, maybe.”

Dina swallows, feeling small and petty. “Do… do you want to order something?”

Ellie is biting the inside of her cheek and nodding back to her, “Uh, yeah, sure.”

They both turn to look at the chalkboard menu on the wall, and read it in silence, Dina turning to glance at Ellie every so often.

Dina picked a bit at the roast chicken and vegetables they had both ordered, not seeming to be able to find her appetite, her stomach having been in knots all day. 

Ellie didn’t seem to have the same problem. Dina couldn’t remember the last time she had seen Ellie eat so much, or so quickly.

“Sorry”, Ellie said wiping her mouth with the cloth napkin, having finally come up for air, “I must look like a fucking pig.”

Dina tried not to smile. She _did_ look like a fucking pig. “No, it’s… I’m glad to see you’re eating.”

“Mitchell just really works me, you know?” Ellie says, not considering what Dina had meant, or how what she had said sounded.

“Shit,” Dina says smirking, “Robin will be heartbroken to hear that.”

Ellie chuckles, “Well, when you’ve got a body like this…”. She waves her hand down herself with a smug look.

Dina just looks at her, instinctively biting her lip. She knows all too well the pull of Ellie’s body. Ellie keeps laughing at her own joke, but it slows as she notices what Dina is doing with her mouth.

Dina drops her lip from her teeth and nervously chuckles for a moment, worrying for a second she must seem insane, laughing at nothing, but Ellie doesn’t seem to mind.

She pushes her plate aside, and looks back at Ellie, deciding she’d better get to it.

“So… I wanted to talk about the other night.”

Ellie gulps at her water, nodding.

Dina goes on, trying to remember everything she had wanted to say. 

“I don’t… it _wasn’t_ …”, _fuck,_ just say it, she thinks to herself as Ellie sits waiting, the table vibrating again from her nervous tapping.

“It wasn’t a mistake.” The tiniest smile starts to play across Ellie’s lips, “I don’t regret it… but..”

The smile starts to falter.

“I don’t think it should happen again.”

She watches Ellie’s reaction, watching her eyebrows shake for a second, and her lips suck in as she nods her head back and forth.

“Yeah… yeah, I mean…”, Ellie sniffs, “Of course not, I mean, I didn’t think it was anything, you know?”

Dina can see Ellie isn’t taking it the way she’s intending, and trying to cover her feelings.

“Hey-”

“No, it’s okay. I get it.”

“Ellie, I don’t mean-”

“No, I totally understand. It’s okay. Thanks for… for telling me.”

Dina sighs. “You know what I love about you?”

Ellie won’t meet her eyes, but she chuckles a little into her mouth. Dina doesn’t have to finish it.

Dina reaches out, about to put her hand on Ellie’s, but sets it down on the table, hoping her original intent wasn’t too obvious.

“Ellie, it’s just that… When you…”, she looks around at all the people in the diner. It had really picked up since they’d started eating. She probably should have started talking about this earlier. 

“When you left, it was… it was _so_ hard. I thought I was going to…”, she doesn’t really know how to finish. Break apart? Sit in a chair and just wither away until she was a part of the furniture? 

Just die?

“I don’t know… and then we heard you had died, and I swear to god...”, her voice breaks as she tries to keep herself together, keep her thoughts moving forward.

“Dina-”, Ellie starts, but Dina waves her off, just wanting to finish.

“And then you show up again one day, and you saved my life-” Ellie starts shaking her head, remembering how Dina had thrown those exact words back in her face.

“No, Ellie, you did. _You did._ I never thanked you for that.” She catches Ellie’s eyes, so that she knows she’s sincere.

“Thank you.”

Dina inhales, her breath shaking slightly, “but… I don’t know… I just… I don’t _fucking_ know if anything can go back to the way it was”, she gazes down at the table and says quietly, “most of the time I don’t feel like I can ever forgive you.”

Ellie cocks her jaw to the side, looking away, scratching her neck, her eyes wet. It looks like she’d like to be anywhere but sitting at this booth.

Dina looks back up at her, tilting her head until Ellie will look at her again.

“But… that doesn’t mean I don’t want to.”

Ellie covers her mouth for a moment, and then wipes her eyes with her thumb and middle finger, breathing through her nose, a sad smile on her face.

Dina can feel tears gathering in her own eyes that she turns to brush away quickly. 

“I don’t know what that might look like. I don’t know if…” she wants to say if they’ll ever be together again like they were, but can’t force the words out. 

“If things will ever be normal again, whatever the fuck that means… but we can try. If you want to.”

Ellie just nods, probably more frantically than she means to, but it seems like it’s all she’s able to do.

Dina lets out a sigh of relief. A part of her really wasn’t sure what Ellie wanted. “But that means no more… whatever that was that happened the other night. It was too… confusing. Too much. We have to start slow. Just try to be friends again? Is that alright?”

Ellie laughs, and keeps nodding, saying “I’d love that. I’d fucking love that.”

Dina smiles, “I think I would too.”

They sit in more comfortable silence than they’ve been able to manage all evening for a bit, before something comes to Dina.

“I, uh… heard a joke a while ago. Do you… want to hear it?”

Ellie is still wiping errant tears from her eyes, “Why would I want to hear a terrible joke?”

Dina lets her mouth fall open, “You _love_ my jokes.”

“Let’s just get this over with”, Ellie smiles, her eyes red.

Dina narrows her eyes, but continues on, “Fine… So, I was out looking for camouflage pants the other-”

“You’re _her._ ”

A voice interrupts Dina’s stellar delivery, coming from a thin woman standing next to their booth, her face rapt in shock, staring at Ellie.

“Hey, we’re kind of in the middle of something-”, Dina starts to say, but the woman speaks over her.

“Oh my god, how are you… how are you _here?_ How are you still _alive?_ ”

Ellie looks like she’s struggling to figure out how she knows this person.

“I’m sorry, have we-”

“You were bit! On your hand, right there! I _saw_ it!”, the woman points at Ellie’s mangled left hand.

Ellie quickly puts her hand under the table, and shoots a look at Dina before looking back up at the woman, recognition written across her face. 

Dina tries to ask, “Ellie who is-”

But Ellie is already talking, trying to hush the woman, “That wasn’t… I wasn’t bitten by an infected. One of the Rattlers bit me when I… It wasn’t an infected.”

Dina realizes this must be one of the former slaves, one of the people who carried the news of Ellie’s death here from Santa Barbara. She had never sought any of them out, not wanting to hear anymore about it, the pain too raw. Now she’s wondering if this is the first time Ellie has ran into one of them, or if this is a story she’s had to tell more than once. 

She had noticed the scar on Ellie’s hand didn’t look like a bite mark, any more than the chemical burn on her arm did. She wondered what Ellie had had to do to cover it up.

The woman looks quickly between Ellie and Dina, like she’s trying to decide if she believes Ellie’s story or not. It seems she does, it being the only rational explanation for the girl in front of her to, well… be sitting her in front of her.

Without warning, she kneels down in front of them until she’s eye to eye, close to Ellie’s face, causing Ellie to recoil a bit, and she grabs Ellie’s hand, speaking in a low voice.

“I never thought I’d get the chance to say, but whatever you were there to do, you… you saved my life. You saved all of my friends lives. We wouldn’t be here today if it weren’t for what you did there.”

Dina just watches them, she can tell Ellie had never even thought about it. Dina hadn’t either, if she was honest, but she realized now that whatever had happened out in California, a whole group of people were still alive because of what Ellie had done. Ellie’s eyes are fixed on the other woman’s.

The woman looks like she wants to hug Ellie, to worship her but she just stands back up. 

“Thank you. Just… thank you”, she turns and quickly leaves the diner.

Ellie sits there silently, looking at the door.

Dina reaches out to touch her shoulder, and Ellie slowly turns back to her.

“Hey… are you okay?”

Ellie is breathing heavily, looking at the table. “Uh, yeah… Hey, I’m kind of tired. It was a really long day. Would you mind if…”

Dina gives her a crooked smile, ‘Yeah, of course.”

Ellie grabs her coat, and starts to make her way out of the booth, stopping as she gets up.

“Do you think… would it be ok if…”

Dina looks up at her, “Do you want to have breakfast with me sometime this week?”

Ellie smiles softly, “Yeah… I’d really like that.”

“Okay,” Dina smiles back. “We’ll do that.”

Ellie stands at the booth for a few moments, like she doesn’t know what to do.

“Okay… Goodnight Dina.”

“Goodnight, Ellie.”

Ellie leaves and Dina sits there. 

She thinks this was the right decision. 

She hopes it was.

\----------

Compared to the six before it, the next month is filled with Dina.

Not like how things used to be, not even when they were younger and just friends, not even close, but more than Ellie could have ever hoped for after all that had gone wrong. 

A couple days after they had talked at dinner, Dina had come and knocked at her door early in the morning to follow up on breakfast, and Ellie had to scramble to get ready. To wash herself from the day before. Dina had waited outside instead of coming in, and Ellie hadn’t pushed the issue, not wanting to make Dina uncomfortable, like she was trying to get her in her house or anything.

Breakfast had been nice, though there were still a lot of awkward silences, a lot of charged moments when things started to get too comfortable between them. A joke would leave them laughing too much. A glance would linger too long.

Ellie kept having the urge to just put her foot up on the seat next to Dina, or to reach out and hold her hand, or to tell her how fucking beautiful she looked that morning. All the things that had been so natural and easy before that she wasn’t allowed to do before. She was sure that, with time, they would sink into the background, but they just hadn’t started to do it yet. 

She couldn’t help but wonder if Dina experienced the same things. If Dina had wanted to kiss her good morning when she opened the door, or put her arm around her waist while they walked. She had to fight those thoughts from her head. She was surprised after everything that Dina even still wanted to be around her. That was enough.

A few days after that, Dina stopped by the wood shop when Ellie was closing up with Mitchell and they walked around the town afterwards, just talking. Not for very long, and nothing serious came up. Ellie felt like they were avoiding talking about anything too intense. 

Things like when Dina had left the farm, what it was like for her all these months, why Ellie had been away for so long or what had even happened in Santa Barbara. Why people from the California group would come up to Ellie on the street and thank her, but it would always leave her just looking haunted. 

All these things went unspoken, like there was an imaginary gate around them that neither woman was willing to cross. Dina had never even asked if Abby was alive or dead. Ellie thought she probably just didn’t want to know. Didn’t want to learn if Ellie had fallen all the way into her bloodlust or not. 

Dina almost never talks about JJ, which Ellie doesn’t know if the reason is because she doesn’t want to hurt her or if she doesn’t want Ellie to know. Mostly, it just hurts her. She aches to ask about him, or to know more whenever Dina does mention him. Every time Dina does let something slip, it’s like she notices right after and catches herself, quickly changing the subject. Ellie knows she gave up the privilege of knowing about his life now, but that doesn’t stop her from wanting to.

Things carry on like that all month. Dina will stop by Ellie’s house or the wood shop, or catch her on the street, maybe a few times a week, and they’ll talk, share news about each other's days, maybe have a short meal together. Every time, it sends Ellie away with a smile on her face. This isn’t what she ever imagined her life would be, but it’s not worse either.

It’s not a lot, but it’s something. 

\-------

“So. Been coming around here a lot.”

It’s not a question when Mitchell says it, just a statement.

Dina and Mitchell are walking to the wood shop, their arms interlocked. She has a shift on wall repair to get to, but she had an urge this morning to stop by with him first, for some reason. 

She looks sideways up at him, 

“You got something you wanna say?”

He just shakes his head, 

“Just saying.”

She shrugs. 

“Maybe I just like seeing your face.”

“Hmm. _That’s_ it.”, he replies.

Dina smiles out of the corner of her mouth. This guy. 

When they reach the shop, Ellie’s there waiting at the side door, blowing into her hands and rubbing them together. Dina notices two small packages at her feet, one about twice the size of the other. 

Ellie’s face breaks into her big stupid Dina’s Special Smile when she catches sight of Dina, and Dina is glad it’s cold enough to hide the blush in her cheeks.

Mitchell and Dina walk up to her, Mitchell getting out his keys, asking, 

“That a delivery?”

“No, um…”, Ellie is shivering a little. Dina wonders if she gets here a while before Mitchell every morning, “I brought them.”

“Hmm”, Mitchell replies and goes in.

Ellie watches him, and turns back to Dina.

“Hey”, she says smiling.

“Hey” Dina responds, “You want to go inside? You look like you’re about to die.”

Ellie really, really looks like she does want to, but shakes her head.

“Um, actually, can we stay out here for just a minute?”

Dina gives her a quizzical look. “Sure, freakshow, whats up?”

Ellie smirks, biting her lip. “Well… I’m glad you’re here because I _really_ didn’t want to have to ask Mitchell to take these…”, she reaches down and picks up the packages.

Dina sighs, she should have known, given what day it is. “Ellie… you didn’t have to.”

“I know! But… I wanted to”, she says, handing the packages to Dina.

A wave of guilt washes over Dina. She had thought about this a lot, but hadn’t gotten around to asking if Ellie would want to come. She thought it would be too hard.

“What… what is it?”, she asks quietly.

“Well, that one…” Ellie points at the smaller package, “... is a stuffed triceratops. I, uh, stole it from the daycare.”

Dina gives her a stern look. 

“ _Well!_ There aren’t a lot of places to get stuffed animals these days.” Ellie says with a wry smile on her face. “I thought she could be friends with Olly… if”, Ellie clears her throat, “If he still has Olly.”

Dina fights back the rush of emotion that is hitting her.

“And uh”, she has to swallow down the lump in her throat, “What’s the other one?”

Ellie rubs the back of her neck, “That one… that one is actually for you.”

Dina looks at her, not sure what to say.

“Ellie…”

“It’s nothing big, it’s like a… a ‘First Night of Chanukah’ present.”

Dina grins at that, oh Gentile Ellie, “Um… you know… Chanukah actually starts on a different day each year, so tonight isn’t-”

“Fuck! Really? Give it back then! _Fuck,_ I feel so dumb.” Ellie reaches to take the bigger package her.

Dina pulls it away, and starts furiously unwrapping. “ _Fuck no,_ it’s my First Night of Chanukah present! You said!”

“Dina, _please,_ don’t open it in front of me, it’s so stu-”

Dina is already lifting the present out of the open box and has fallen silent. Inside is a small roughly carved wooden sculpture. It's very crude, but it obviously had taken Ellie a lot of time and effort. Dina can hardly believe what she’s looking at. She looks up at Ellie, who looks like she’s about to fall over dead from an embarrassment stroke.

“It’s… it’s supposed to be-” Ellie starts.

Dina is smiling a smile big enough and stupid enough to match even Ellie’s signature smile, when she says, “It’s a menorah-saurus.”

In her hands is a carved dinosaur on a sturdy base, with 9 candle holders running the length of its back, from its neck to the tip of its outstretched tail.

Ellie is practically stuttering, “I know… I know you already have a menorah, I don’t know, I just thought… I don’t know what I thought. Maybe that you’d like-”

“I love it.”, Dina beams at her. “I fucking _love_ it. I really, really do. Thank you, Ellie.”

Ellie starts to smile back, “Really?”

“Really.”

They stand there for a bit, just smiling at each other, before Ellie looks at the door.

“I’d… probably better get in there, Mitchell gets fussy if I don’t start working before he does.”

Dina wants to run over and hug her. To hold her. To kiss her grinning face. To tell her how special this stupid, stupid gift is to her, but she doesn’t do any of those things. She just can’t.

“Yeah… ok, probably should go.”

Ellie nods, “And hey, um… you don’t have to say that the stuffed dinosaur is from me or anything. I just wanted to give him something. You don't turn one every day.”

Dina knows then what she _can_ do.

“Ellie, why don’t… why don’t you give it to him yourself?”

Realization crosses Ellie’s face, but it’s like she doesn’t believe what she’s hearing.

“Are… are you sure?”

Dina isn’t. They had made small steps together in the last month, but things were still so different. Sometimes she could feel herself wanting to just reach out and touch Ellie, and other times, for no reason at all, she felt repelled by her. Ellie wouldn’t have done anything in that moment, but a feeling would just come over Dina like she just couldn’t stand to look at her. Sometimes it would pass as soon as it had arrived, and others it would stay so long she would have to make an excuse to leave.

But every day, here Ellie still was. Trying. Not pushing her boundaries. Not asking a single thing of her. Just being here, only taking what Dina was willing to give. She didn’t feel like she owed Ellie anything for that. Ellie didn’t get a reward just for being around. But maybe Dina was allowed to let Ellie back into her life, one step at a time. 

Maybe they were both allowed that. 

She had told Ellie she wanted to try to forgive her. How can she do that if she doesn’t try herself?

Dina looks into Ellie’s hopeful green eyes, still so much like the eyes she had fallen in love with all those years ago.

“Yeah. I’m sure.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YOOOOU KIDS! Kind of a different feel going on now that they're in the same place, but I like it. Nearly 50k words of them apart was enough for me I think.
> 
> The song I listened to a lot while writing this one was "A Matter of Time" off The Killers second best album Battle Born (second to Sam's Town, fight me). This song hits late, not really getting to the heart of it until it's almost over, but once it does... man. It hits hard.
> 
> Find me on [Tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/whiskeytango8686) . Send a writing prompt for this series if you'd like, maybe I'll run with it.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One party after another

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, I can't say how humbled I am by the responses this story is getting. There was something like 1200 hits on it in the day that I posted the last chapter, which I'm sure happens for some writers all the time, but was definitely new for me. 
> 
> Thank you all so much for reading.

The farm house is filled with more people than it ever has been, or it ever will be again. 

It’s late December, almost Christmas, and the snowstorms have let up. The ground is still white, like it always is this time of year, and likely will be through March, but it’s safe enough to travel again, so Ellie had made her way back to Jackson, and invited everyone they knew to come celebrate JJ’s birth. 

And the people sure came.

Tommy and Maria and half the watch and the patrol. Anyone who wasn’t on active duty that day it seemed like. Robin and Mitchell and every one of their friends. All of Ellie and Dina and Jesse’s old friends as well, though Antony said that Cat couldn’t make it. That she had a cold or something. Dina doesn’t much miss her.

Just like the dances, it seems like the town takes any opportunity to celebrate something. It’s not rare that good things happen around Jackson, but it’s not rare that tragedy strikes either. Finding opportunity to celebrate has become a part of life.

Dina welcomes everyone in with welcome arms, and smiles at Ellie’s slightly less welcoming attitude.

“I didn't think _this_ many people would actually fucking come”, Ellie says under her breath to her, as more and more horses and carts show up at their gate.

Dina keeps waving, and kisses her on the cheek, “Buck up, it’s going to be great.”

She thinks she hears Ellie give a deep sigh as she heads out the door to help people tie up their horses.

 _Fuck,_ Dina thinks. There are a lot of people, though.

The house fills up quick, and the food runs out pretty fast. Thankfully, there’s a lot of liquor, and mostly, people are just happy to be there.

To see Dina and Ellie for a while after their long stretch away at the farm. Seeing old friends again after a long absence is a rarity these days. Mostly you just have to assume that when someones gone, they’re gone.

At some point Gustavo convinces Ellie to bust out her guitar, and they sit down together. He leads on his banjo and she follows, and eventually everyone is stomping their feet in time, rattling their whole house. It would have been an impromptu dance had there been room for it.

The star of the show is of course, JJ, and Dina beams every time she introduces him to anyone. He wiggles in her arms and reaches tiny hands at them, his eyes wide in wonder at the world around him. 

Nothing fills Dina’s heart more though than when Ellie joins her side, and says to someone “This is _our_ son, JJ”. So many times she’s thought she couldn’t love that woman more, and each time Ellie says it, she’s proven wrong again. 

Hours go by and people have started to thin out, JJ has fallen asleep in her sling as she talks with Hannah and Antony and Maria in the dining room. She glances out the front, looking for Ellie, and sees her through the front window, standing on the front porch, sharing a drink with Tommy. He’s doing most of the talking, it seems like, but Ellie has a sad smile on her face. Dina watches them share an awkward hug before they both come back inside.

Later that night, Ellie comes and lies down across from her in their bed, huddling down into their cave of blankets. JJ is between them, his soft snoring having already started to lull Dina to sleep before Ellie’s movement roused her. 

Dina says softly, to not wake JJ, “Hey beautiful…”

The white between Ellie’s freckles goes red, Dina loves that she can make her blush so easily. Ellie whispers back, “Hey”

“That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

Ellie lets out an over exaggerated sigh and rolls her eyes, “I guess… it wasn’t _too_ awful.”

Dina leans in and gently kisses her, “What’d you and Tommy talk about?”

“Hmm?”, Ellie says, still leaning into the kiss.

“When you were outside?”, Dina says, leaning back.

“Oh,” Ellie lies back down, and smiles a little. “It was nothing really. He just said…”

Dina just waits for her to finish.

Ellie looks down at JJ sleeping, “He said… that Joel would be proud of me.”

Dina reaches over and cups Ellie’s face, bringing Ellie’s eyes back to hers, “He would be. I am.”

Ellie smiles and bites her lips, and Dina can feel the heat rising in her body as she watches Ellie do it.

Dina puts her leg over Ellie’s, pressing her foot against Ellie’s calf, and Ellie recoils, trying to stay quiet.

“How are your feet always so fucking cold?”

“My hands are pretty warm”, she says, raising an eyebrow, sliding her palm along the back of Ellie’s bare legs, feeling goosebumps start to raise along her skin.

“What about-”, Ellie starts to say, but Dina is already getting up and slowly lifting JJ from the bed and putting him into his crib.

“He has a bed of his own for a reason.”, she says crawling back over to Ellie.

She can see Ellie’s chest rising faster as her breath quickens, her eyes hooded watching Dina come back to her, but she still asks, “Are you sure? You practically just gave birth.”

Dina slowly places her legs on either side of Ellie's hips, runs her hands under her shirt along her sides, and leans down to whisper in her ear.

“You didn’t.”

\----------

“So… Ellie’s coming.”

Dina said it through a feigned cough, voice down low. Maybe just getting the words out was enough, and she wouldn’t have to explain any further. 

That seemed like a real fucking likely scenario.

She had also dropped a pan on the floor, just for good measure.

Robin called out to her from the living room where she was setting up chairs around the edges of the space, 

“What was that, dear? I couldn’t hear you.”

Dina stood in the kitchen, staring at the ceiling, holding the pan again with both hands, trying to take in deep, calming breaths. She wishes in that moment that her people had a simple hand gesture like the cross she had seen some of the christians in town make in front of their chests. Something to get her through this part.

“Grant me strength,” she whispers to herself.

She calls back to Robin, resisting the urge to throw the pan on the ground again to cover her confession, “I said… Ellie’s coming, tonight.”

“Oh, no, I don’t think so. I don’t remember sending her one of the invitations.”, Robin says, repositioning the coffee table so it doesn’t get in the way.

Dina rubs her eyes with one hand, letting out a low sigh, “No, I mean, _I_ invited her.”

The noise in the living stops abruptly, and Robin comes into the dining room so she can see Dina, her face full of confusion. “Why?”

Dina tries to look busy, checking on the cupcakes in the oven, like none of this is a big deal. 

“Because, she’s JJ’s… I thought she would want to come. We’ve been seeing more of each other lately, and I decided it would be alright.”

Robin slowly makes her way through the dining room, rubbing her hands together, looking like she’s trying to do long division in her head. 

“Aren’t you worried that might be… I don’t know how to put it. Confusing? For JJ?”

Dina stares into the oven, breathing through her nose, then stands to face Robin, 

“I think him _not_ seeing her is confusing for him. 

The older woman leans on the counter separating the two rooms, giving Dina a truly patient and sympathetic look, 

“But whose choice was that, sweetheart?”

Dina stands with one hand on her hip, the other scratching the back of her head, before giving a defeated, palms to the sky, shrug, 

“I know. _I know._ But I just want-”

Robin comes around the counter and puts her hands on Dina’s arms, rubbing them softly with her thumbs. 

“I’m not trying to upset you, I’m really not. I… we just don’t want you to get hurt.”

Dina laughs a little, _“We?_ You and Mitchell talk a lot about my love life?”

Robin pulls her into an embrace that Dina returns, “He does a lot of listening.”

“He’s good at that.”

“He is.” Robin nods as she pulls back, “If you want Ellie to come, she’s welcome. Just… are you sure?”

Dina nods, trying to give Robin a reassuring smile before she goes back to working in the living room to prepare for the party.

Ellie had asked her the same question earlier that day. She wasn’t sure at the time, even though she had told Ellie otherwise. Her heart had just been so full at the moment, with the labor of love Ellie had given her, the surprise gift for JJ, and Ellie not expecting anything of any of it.

Dina had gone through her whole life with people expecting things of her. Her mother had expected her to be like Talia. Talia had expected her to be a good Jew. Jesse had expected her to be his wife one day. 

Even Ellie had her expectations, even if she never said them. Had expected Dina to just be some stone that Ellie could break on, even while Dina was breaking herself. Had expected Dina to just watch her slowly come undone, and never talk about it. Maybe when Ellie left, she had expected that Dina would still be waiting at the farm whenever she’d get back, even though Dina told her she wouldn’t be. 

But the Ellie who came back wasn’t the same one who left. If Ellie had anything she wanted from her, Dina didn’t know what it was besides just to be in her life again. Dina was finding the purity of that was chipping away at the armor she prepares around herself every time they’re about to see each other. She didn’t know if the electricity in her bones at the thought that one day it would be gone and the two of them would be there, naked to each other made her uncomfortable or if it exhilarated her.

But she knew which way she was leaning.

This new Ellie reminded her of the girl she had known before. Dina had started to think in all the painful time that they were apart that _that_ Ellie, the one she had really fallen in love with, had really been dead for a long time. Had been murdered along with Joel on the floor of that basement. The one who Dina had woken up had looked like her, and sounded like her, and tasted like her, but some part was gone, too haunted to ever come back.

But now, she was seeing _her_ again, and it was every bit like seeing a ghost as it was when Ellie had first returned, but instead of making her blood run cold, it made Dina’s heart dance in her chest. In every goofy smile, every laugh, every stolen glance just like when they were teenagers, Dina saw the Ellie she had been missing before she even knew she was gone. 

Dina didn’t know what all of that would mean for them moving forward. Even though Ellie did seem so different now, she couldn’t just break her away from what she had done, and there were still times when she still seemed so distant, like she was still grappling with things inside of herself. Dina thought she probably always would be.

But she knew after seeing Ellie she felt comfortable enough to invite her to JJ’s first birthday party. To try to start to move in the direction of letting Ellie back into their collective lives.

She didn’t think she had ever done anything more cruel than when she had told Ellie, weeping on her knees in the middle of the street, that she could never see JJ again. She had wanted to protect him. She thought she _was_ protecting him. Ellie could have left again at any second for all she knew. She felt now that she was protecting herself in that moment though, more than JJ. 

Her son loved Ellie. She hung the sun and the moon in the sky as far as he knew. She was his mom. 

If Ellie was here to stay, Dina would be hurting JJ more than anything by not letting them be around each other.

Wouldn’t she?

\----------

Ellie stands in the small bathroom of her house, shivering as her hair dries. She wants to give up on it. Just rub it down with the towel until it’s dry like she always does. 

Is she supposed to wrap it back up with the towel? She had seen other girls do that at the Academies. Dina used to do it at their house. She made it look so easy. It seemed like it’d be so warm. She tries twisting one a few ways and it falls off her head in a tangled sheet each time until she’s kicking it out of the room. 

Who cares? Why does she care? JJ won’t be able to tell the difference if her hair looks nice or not. He’d probably like it if it looks crazy. Maybe he’d grab at it and laugh. His adorable little laugh. She wonders what it sounds like now. She wonders how long his hair is now. How big he is now.

Maybe she’ll try the towel hat again. 

_“Fuck!",_ she yells at nothing when it unravels again after a few seconds. 

She runs a comb furiously through the damp tangles, trying to make it look presentable, and examines her handiwork in the mirror. It’ll have to do. She doesn’t think she can do any better.

She spends more time picking a shirt to wear than she thinks she has in years, maybe ever, eventually landing on a green and blue button she had traded for recently. She used to have one a lot like it, but she had left it with so many other things at the farm. 

She stands back in front of the mirror trying to decide how many buttons to button. Have it open with the t-shirt showing? Maybe mostly buttoned? She buttons and unbuttons it so many times the word “button” starts to lose all meaning to her, eventually landing on closing it up to around halfway up her chest. It seemed the most appropriate.

She almost doesn’t tie the hamsa Dina gave her around her wrist. She’s been wearing it since Mexico, having found it still in her bag and being comforted by it being wrapped around her, but she’s wondered since being back if Dina had found it presumptuous, like Ellie didn’t deserve to wear something so intimate between them anymore. She had seen Dina glancing at it from time to time when they were together, and Ellie wanted to ask if it was still ok, but didn’t have the courage to. She didn’t want to give it up. Her will falters again, and she ends up tying it on.

Pacing back and forth through the open space, she keeps looking at the triceratops sitting on her bed. Glaring at her. Judging her decisions. 

Will JJ like it? Does he like dinosaurs anymore? Did he ever, or did they just dress him in dinosaur onesies? Will he even notice it? He’ll probably get a ton of gifts. Does he have friends? A lot of friends and people who will be there? Do babies even have friends? Shit, how many people are going to be there?

The triceratops offers her no answers. Just stares back with it’s beady little black eyes.

“Fuck you too, man.” She says, looking at the clock. 

It’s go time.

She throws on her coat, her nerves running wild, and stuffs the dino as best she can into one of the inner pockets. It barely fits, most of it sticking out like a small animal trying to see where she’s going. 

As she’s walking out, Tommy is coming down the back porch towards her, walking carefully through the snow.

She offers him a small wave, “Just headed out.”

“Glad I caught ya then”, he says, he’s carrying a small box in the hand that he waves back to her with, the items inside clattering as he does so.

Things had smoothed with Tommy considerably in the last month. When Ellie wasn’t at the wood shop or with Dina, she often found herself back in Joel’s old house, sitting quietly with Tommy. Reading. Sketching. Sometimes they would talk, or share a meal. Sometimes they’d watch a movie, though their tastes were pretty different. He didn’t go for the same kind of ridiculous action movies Ellie had loved watching with Joel. Tommy seemed to prefer historical stuff, the kind of movies that stretched on forever and sometime’s bored Ellie to tears. But she was finding that she just liked being around him. 

They would never be to each other what she and Joel had. But they had both lost Joel. Both lost so much because of what they had done with that hurt, and they found common ground in that, even if they didn’t really talk about it anymore.

She had stopped by the house after her shift that day and told Tommy she was going to JJ’s birthday that night, and he had seemed both happy for her and sad. She hadn’t had time to linger on it as she needed to go get ready herself.

“I was wonderin’ if ya wouldn’t mind takin’ this with ya?”, he asks as he walks up to her, awkwardly handing her the box, like he isn’t sure she’ll take it.

“This a bomb or something?”, she grins. She had heard that Tommy and Dina were not on good terms.

“Well,” he chuckles, “jus’ leave before they open it.”

She laughs a little but raises her eyebrows to him. He was a Firefly, you never know.

He stands there looking sheepish, rubbing his ear on the scarred side of his face, “No, no… it’s jus’... I made some... They’re jus’ some alphabet blocks.”

Ellie looks down at the box and shakes it a little, hearing the blocks move against each other. “Tommy…”

“It’s nothin’, I jus’ started ‘em last year, and I never got around to finishin’. They look like shit. Depth perception ain’t what it-”

Ellie cuts him off, pulling him into a one armed hug, catching him off guard, but he pats her on the back in return before they step away from each other, and act like it never happened.

“I’ll make sure he gets it.”, Ellie says, starting to walk away.

Tommy nods as he hurries back into the house, “Ye-yeah… thanks. That’d be nice.”

\----------

Ellie stands outside the door for longer than she means to, she just can’t bring herself to knock. She keeps raising her hand to, and dropping it back down. Inside, she can hear soft music playing and people chatting and laughing. Quite a few people. Definitely more people than she was expecting. 

She knew it wasn’t just going to be the her, Dina, and JJ, or even them and Robin and Mitchell… fuck how awkward would that of been, but she doesn’t know why she thought it wouldn’t be _this_ many people. Everyone loved Robin and Mitchell, and everyone loved Jesse and Dina. Why wouldn’t they show up to their son’s first birthday? It's like she forgot how many people showed up the first time.

It takes another couple arriving behind Ellie and waiting for her to knock for her to finally do it. Even then, she moves behind them, and tries to act like she’s not really there when the door swings open. Robin hugs the newcomers warmly, and invites them in, and then catches sight of Ellie, who is diligently examining the fixture on the porch light.

“Hello, Ellie. So good of you to make it”, she says. Apparently she used up all that warmth on those other people, because her tone is flat.

“Hi Robin”, Ellie waves lamely at her, “I appreciate you having me.”

“Of course. Won’t you come in?”, Robin moves inside, allowing Ellie in before returning to other guests.

Ellie takes a deep breath and steps through the door into the entryway. The house is immediately familiar to her, having been there so many times before with Jesse and Dina. The place hardly looks any different than it had the first time she walked in.. 

Except for all the people. 

At least twenty five, maybe even thirty people are huddled into the walls of the house. Some holding drinks, chatting with each other. There are small children running through rooms. Ellie can hear laughter and talking coming from what she remembers is the living room, but can’t see what’s happening behind the backs of the crowd. Some of the people she recognizes, old friends who she waves to and has brief hello’s with. Most she can only kind of place. Maybe friends of Robin and Mitchells, she figures.

There’s a stack of presents on the dining room table, and she sets Tommy’s gift on it, the thought of how embarrassed he was about it bringing a quick smile to her lips. Coats are piled in the corner of the room and she tosses hers on top, holding on to the stuffed dinosaur like a life perseverer. She hasn’t caught sight of Dina or JJ yet, and makes her way to the living room.

She moves around the group, and when she sees what’s in the middle of the room, she has to catch herself from falling over.

Crawling around the floor laughing and playing with another child is JJ. He’s dressed in what looks like a handmade green onesie with a tail that has spikes running all down the back of it, and big plush eyes on the hood, his black hair bursting out all over the place, making him look as though he is a dinosaur, or he’s been swallowed by one and just his face is still sticking out. Dina is sitting close by, rolling a ball back to him every time he pushes it to her, with Robin and Mitchell standing over them, Mitchell snapping off pictures with his instant camera. Somehow, he must have found more film for it after all these years.

Ellie feels like she’s frozen in place. She can’t move. She can’t breathe. It’s been 7 months since she’s seen him, and she feels every single day of those months in that instant. Waves of guilt and love take turns crashing over her.

As her hands grip tighter around the stuffed dinosaur and she tries to remember how to draw oxygen into her lungs, Dina looks up at something someone says to her, and catches sight of Ellie. Dina’s face is unreadable for the barest moment, but then she gives Ellie a reassuring smile, and picks up JJ, putting him in her lap while he protests, her eyes on Ellie’s the whole time, like she’s trying to help hold her up with her gaze.

“Hey goober, look who it is.” Ellie can hear Dina say to JJ as she turns him to face her. He doesn’t seem to pay her any mind, still distracted by the other child and the ball. 

Ellie wants to look away but can’t. This is too much. There are too many people. She shouldn’t have come. She wants to leave but her feet are locked in place, refusing to budge.

Dina whispers some more into JJ’s ear, and then stands with him and carries him over to Ellie, mouthing “hey” to her, and Ellie just dumbly mouths “hi” in response as they back away from the crowd a bit.

Dina holds JJ in her arms in front of Ellie, and says to him, “Hey JJ, do you remember your…”, her eyes glance at Ellie for a moment, “do you remember her?”. She nudges Ellie to say something.

Ellie comes back to herself a bit at Dina’s touch, and she stammers out, “H-hey JJ, it’s… Ellie. Remember me?” 

He still seems unphased by her appearance, and Dina looks at her like she’s considering something before asking, “Do you want to hold him?”

Ellie nods frantically and Dina hands him over to her. He’s so much heavier than Ellie remembered, and the weight of him in her arms, the feel of him makes her heart lurch. 

“Heeeey big guy”, she says trying not to cry, “I, uh… I brought you something”.

She looks to Dina for confirmation that it's ok, but Dina’s face is awash in emotions Ellie wasn’t expecting to see. Ellie had thought she was the one that was about to tear up, but Dina’s eyes already look hazy. After a moment, Dina nods, appearing to have comprehended the unspoken question.

Ellie pulls the triceratops up from under her arm where she had stashed it, and presents it to JJ, whose face breaks into a huge smile as he grabs it by the two big horns. He starts giggling and smashing it against Ellie’s chest, and Ellie thinks her face is going to break in half from how wide she’s smiling down at him. 

Dina laughs and reaches out to stop him, but Ellie shakes her head. JJ can do whatever he wants, as far as she’s concerned. She can’t believe she’s even getting to have him in her arms again. He can beat her with a stuffed toy all he wants.

“You’re getting so strong!”, she says, laughing, “You’re such a strong Potato!”

When her nickname for him falls out of her mouth, his movement slows, and he raises his head up to her for the first time, his little eyes searching her face. Ellie looks down at him in wonder as he lets go of the dinosaur with one of his little hands, and raises it up to her hair, grabbing a lock of it and pulling. 

Ellie would swear he was remembering who she was when he turns in her arms and reaches back for Dina, and saying “Mama!”

All over again the breath catches in Ellie’s throat. Hearing him speak, hearing that little voice. She can barely hold herself together as Dina takes him from her, saying “Yeah, lets get you back to the party!”, giving Ellie a wink as she does so.

At any other moment, that wink would have sent a bolt of lighting straight through her, but right then, she barely registered it. 

“Hey, um, bathroom still-”, she’s barely able to get out of her mouth.

“Yeah, just first door on the left down the hall.” Dina says, smiling at her, bouncing JJ in her arms.

“Thanks”, Ellie says, rushing away.

She practically slams the door behind her, and grips the edges of the sink, leaning over it, sucking in mouthfuls of air that still don’t feel like enough. She’s laughing and crying her eyes out at the same time. 

She was holding JJ in her arms.

He spoke. 

She thinks he recognized her. 

She laughs and laughs and laughs. This may be the best night of her life if it doesn’t give her a heart attack first.

She stays in the bathroom much longer than other people will find appropriate.

\----------

Dina can’t take her eyes off of Ellie the whole evening.

She knows she should be socializing, being a good host. 

She knows all these people are really here for her. Adults come to kids parties for the other adults.

She makes an effort. 

She mingles. She drinks. She shares stories and laughs at all the right beats.

But her mind is somewhere else entirely.

It’s over on the other side of the room with the redhead playing with her son.

Ellie wasn’t making any attempts at being social at all. Once she had returned from the bathroom, she had zeroed in on JJ, and after getting a reaffirming look from Dina, had gotten down on the floor, started playing with him, and hadn’t stopped all night.

So far it looked like she had been JJ’s horse, a tickle monster, a block construction partner, and whatever else he had been interested in. 

When he wanted something, Ellie got it.

When he needed to be changed, Ellie did it.

The hours carried on, people moving through rooms, listening to music, discussing things adults talk about, and there Ellie was, still on the floor, smiling like it was the first time she had smiled in her life.

Dina wants everyone else to not be there. She wants to just run over and join Ellie and JJ and somehow start making up for all the time they had lost. But instead she just watches, a smile on her lips, pretending to care about what all the other people are saying. 

This wasn’t something she had allowed herself to think about before, so lost in her own pain that she couldn’t picture how beautiful and simple just seeing them together again would be. What it would do to her.

It’s the first time time she can imagine that somehow it might be possible for them to be a family again. She doesn’t know how, or if that’s even what Ellie wants. But each time JJ smiles up at Ellie, a voice in Dina’s heart grows louder, trying to drown out all the other voices of doubt, telling her it’s what Dina wants.

The voice tries to tell her

_“What’s to stop this one moment from becoming two?”_

_“Then those two becoming more?”_

_“And all those moments just becoming your lives?”_

Dina knows it’s not that easy. 

But why can’t it be?

\----------

Ellie stands, leaning her back against the counter separating the dining room and the kitchen, singing at the top of her lungs. If she stopped to think about, she would realize it was the first time she had sang at all since the day before she left the farm, but for once, no thoughts like that enter her head at all. 

All the lights are off, the room only lit by a single candle flickering on top of a cupcake sitting in front of JJ as the whole house recites “Happy Birthday” to him. He doesn’t seem all that interested in the sentiment of the song, but he’s very interested in the cupcake. When the singing is over, Dina tells him to make a wish, and blows out the candle for him. She barely has the candle out of it before he faceplants into the cupcake, and Ellie laughs harder than she thinks she’s ever laughed in her entire life. 

Dina makes eye contact with her as Ellie snorts, and laughs herself, smiling ear to ear, something warm and welcoming on her face.

Robin starts passing out cupcakes to the guests, and Ellie is on her way back over to Dina and JJ when Mitchell walks up to her.

“It’s a nice night. Come out front with me, have a drink.” he says, already heading in the direction of the front door.

“Oh, I was just going-”, Ellie starts to say.

“C’mon”. Mitchell says, apparently not taking no for an answer. 

Ellie stands, watching him head out, weighing her options, wanting to just spend more time with JJ, but deciding she can’t really say no to him. She grabs her coat off the floor, her glass of water from the counter, and follows him out, closing the door behind her.

The night had grown very cold, the crisp air biting at her as soon as she walked out, though it was kind of refreshing after the heat of the packed house. Mitchell stood leaning against the railing of the porch, a glass of brown liquor in his hand, looking out at the neighborhood in front of him, as Ellie moved to join him a few feet away. 

He inhales deeply through his nose, and takes a sip of his drink, looking down at the water in Ellie’s hand.

“Don’t drink?”, he asks.

She glances down at the glass in her hands, “Guess I’ve been trying not to.”

He nods, taking another sip, “Probably good.”

They stand in silence for a few moments, Ellie wanting to ask why he wanted her to join him, but with him being the way he is, she just lets it come.

“Been doing good work. In the shop, I mean.”, he says to her, turning his gaze up to the sky.

“Um… thank you. I’ve been trying”, she doesn’t really know what to say, “You’re a good teacher.”

He doesn’t seem to have any response to that.

“Your father used to come around the shop. Talk to me about business, ask for tips.” 

The same sharp sting cuts into Ellie’s heart that always does whenever anyone refers to Joel as her father, something she never openly did when he was alive, and wishes she had.

“Didn’t know him well, but he did a lot for this town. Worked hard. Kept people safe. He was a good man.” 

Even though Mitchell isn’t looking at her as he speaks, Ellie has to look away, worried she might start crying out of nowhere.

Mitchell pauses for second, glancing over at her before looking back out into the street and continuing, 

“So, I understood when you went after the people who did that to him. When Dina went with you… and I understood when...”

Ellie turns to face him when he stumbles on his words, something she’s never heard him do before. She doesn’t think she’s ever heard him speak this much at all.

“... When Jesse followed you. He loved you two. Just the kind of man he was. I understood.”

Ellie can see his jaw working, and when he finally turns his head to look at her, she almost can’t look him in the eye.

“I don't think you know, but when Tommy found… He came to me. Asked if I wanted to go too.”, She can see his hand that’s gripping the railing squeezing tighter, his knuckles jutting out, and she can feel tears starting to form in her eyes that she doesn’t dare move to wipe away.

“I’m no hand with a gun, but if I was in front of the woman who took my boy-”

His voice breaks for just a moment, and he has to stop to clear his throat, looking away long enough for Ellie to dry her eyes. When he turns back they stare at each other for a long while before he goes on.

“Would have burned the world down”, he says almost more to himself than to Ellie.

Ellie’s ragged breaths can’t match his even ones, and they make her feel even smaller in his calm presence. 

“But I couldn’t. Robin needed me more.”

The shame hits Ellie hard and fast, as she finally starts to understand why she thinks he’s telling her this. His voice isn’t angry, or disappointed. Just matter of fact, like it always is.

“That girl in there, she needed me.” He turns and looks in the front window, leading Ellie’s eyes into where Dina is standing with a group of people, laughing along to something they’re saying.

“And that little boy needed me. So I gave it up” 

Ellie can’t tear her eyes away from Dina as he speaks. 

“That’s what love is.”

Dina sees her through the window and smiles.

“That’s what commitment means.”

Dina bites her lip, and looks away, and Ellie turns and looks up at Mitchell, his face as stoic as ever.

“Now… what’s done is done. No changing the hurts we’ve caused.”

She looks back in the window and Dina is gone.

“If you’re here now, be here. Not for now. Not for sometime.”

She feels his big hand on her shoulder, and looks him in the eyes.

“Be here.”

He pats his hand once, and starts to head towards the door, still talking.

“Always liked you Ellie. Glad you’re back. Really am.”

Ellie watches him as he stops at the door. 

“My grandson deserved all three of his parents. But I think he'll get by with the two, if she’ll have you.”

As he walks inside, Ellie collapses into one of the porch chairs, her legs unable to hold her any longer. 

Dina finds her out there twenty minutes later, and Ellie smiles as she watches her shiver as she steps outside.

“Hey, been looking for you.”, she says smiling down at Ellie. “It’s fucking freezing out. How long have you been out here?”

Ellie stands and puts her hands in her back pockets, “Well, since i started wearing real coats I hardly even feel the cold anymore.”

Dina smirks, stepping closer to her, “Yeah, I noticed that.”, She gives Ellie a once over look, “I kind of miss the old canvas jacket with a hoodie thing. I thought it made you look...”, she seems to choose her next word very carefully, “...cool”.

“I know,” Ellie grins at her, taking a step forward, “why do you think I wore them?”

Dina rubs her arms and looks away, is she… blushing?, “So… what’d you men folk talk about out here?”

“Oh, you know. The wood shop. Beer. Muscles.”, Ellie wants to take another step to her, they would be just inches apart, but she doesn’t. That’s Dina’s step to take. “You know, Man stuff.”

“That going to be a tradition?”, Dina laughs, taking another half step towards Ellie, “You and one of the guys leaving JJ’s birthday party to talk about Man Stuff on the front porch?”

Ellie can’t hide her smile, “If… you’ll have me there.”

Dina looks up at her from under her eyelashes, but then looks inside the window and steps back on her heels. “So, I think the party is kind of winding down. People are starting to gather their things.”

“Oh”, Ellie nods, tonguing her cheek.

“And JJ is practically already asleep.”

Ellie takes the queue, and starts backing away, “I should probably get going then.”

Dina watches her, chewing on her lip.

Ellie gives her a small smile, “I really appreciate you inviting me. I loved-”

“How about you stick around for a minute? Put JJ to bed?”, Dina says quietly. 

Ellie is almost immediately back up a step in front of her, 

“Really?”, she says, smiling in a way she’s sure makes her look especially dumb, but she doesn’t care.

Dina rolls her eyes at her and tilts her head back at the door, “Yeah, now come on. Before Robin does it herself.”

They head inside together, Dina thanking people as they leave past her, and Robin is holding an already passed out JJ as she helps usher people out the door. Ellie tries to nod to Mitchell, but he doesn’t seem to pay her any mind. Dina takes JJ from Robin, and whispers to her, 

“I’m going to see everyone out, Ellie’s going to put JJ down.”

Robin looks between them for a moment, but doesn’t argue as Dina slowly hands JJ in Ellie’s waiting arms.

He stirs a little in his sleep, but then curls into her shirt, grabbing one of her buttons. 

Dina leans up to her ear and says softly “up the stairs, second door on the right”, and the charge that shoots through Ellie at Dina’s lips being so close to her again feels like something she shouldn’t be experiencing while holding a child.

Ellie slowly and carefully carries JJ up the stairs, walking through the hall like she’s carrying a bomb. She feels like she’s forgotten how to do this right, but she is dying to learn again.

She takes him into the nursery and sets him in the crib, the same one that used to be in their bedroom at the farm. She had thought at one point she would never see it again. Would never see JJ again, but here she was, placing him in it as he slept. She would have given anything for this, and she’s not sure she’s given enough.

She takes a moment to glance around the nursery, taking in everything. All the toys. The soft rocking chair that Dina must sit in with him until he’s asleep. On a cabinet there’s a framed photo she recognizes immediately. It used to hang on the corkboard above her bed, and then in the farm house. 

It’s one of her favorites. 

Her, Dina, and Jesse, all smiling into the camera, together. Only she’s been ripped out of the photo. It ripples through her heart to think of being torn out of the memory, but after what she had done, she thinks she doesn’t deserve less.

All she can do now is prove that she’s worth being in the new photos.

She thinks back to what Mitchell said to her earlier.

_“Be here.”_

There’s nowhere else she’d rather be again. 

There’s nowhere else she will ever be again, if Dina will let her stay.

She reaches down and puts her hand next to JJ’s in the crib, lightly touching his fingers. His hand grabs out, and wraps around the stub of her little finger, and she feels more complete than she has in months. 

She notices Olly in the crib. He has a button that wasn’t there before sewn onto his chest. Wasn’t there that she can remember at least. When she picks him to look at it she hears a quiet voice behind her.

“Exciting night for such a little guy, huh?”, Ellie turns and finds Dina leaning against the door frame, smiling at her.

Ellie hopes she can hide the melancholy in her voice, “He’s not so little anymore.”

Dina crosses the room and stands by the crib next to her, taking Olly from her hand. “No, I guess he’s not.”

Ellie rests her hands on the crib, and looks at the stuffed elephant, asking “What’s with the button?”

“Umm…”, Dina seems nervous at the question, as she drops Olly back into the crib like she’s getting rid of evidence, “Not sure. Guess I thought he needed a button.”

Her hand falls on the crib close to Ellie’s, her arm brushing against the hamsa on Ellie’s wrist. They share a look as it happens, before both look down at JJ.

Neither are able to breathe steadily, both pretending not to notice the proximity to each other. It’s closer than they’ve been to each since the night of Ellie’s episode. 

Ellie turns her eyes to Dina, and whispers. “Thank you for this. I can’t… I can’t even tell you what it means to me.”

Dina’s fingers start to slowly touch Ellie’s hand on the railing of the crib, making their way over each one, setting Ellie’s skin on fire, as she whispers back.

“He…”, Dina has to swallow the lump in her throat, “... _he_ missed you, Ellie.”

Ellie watches Dina’s dark eyes as they move down to her lips.

 _“He_ missed you… _so_ much.”

They start to lean into each other, their arms pressing together, Ellie opening her fingers to let Dina’s intertwine into hers. Dina still smells the same she always had, and the scent washes over Ellie, overpowering her.

Like vanilla and linen. 

Like the air before it rains.

Like home.

Their lips are almost touching when Robin leans into the room,

“Everyone is gone now, dear”, and she leans back out and heads back down the stairs.

And the moment is gone. 

Dina leans away from her, and smiles bashfully,

“It’s getting late…”

Ellie nods, looking down at their still tangled fingers, 

“Yeah… I should probably…”

Dina slowly pulls her hand away from Ellie’s, letting it linger a moment longer, 

“Yeah… come on.”

Dina leads her out of the room and down the hall, but stops suddenly at the stairs.

“I, um… I have something for you. Just wait here”, she says, as she disappears into the room Ellie remembers used to be Jesse’s. It must be Dina’s room now, she realizes.

A little while later, longer than Ellie was expecting, Dina comes back out, holding a picture frame in her hands, looking down at it. 

“I… brought this back with me from the farm. It didn’t seem right to leave it there.”, she takes one last look at the picture and hands it to Ellie. 

“I was thinking you would want it back.”

In Ellie’s hand is the photo Tommy had taken so soon after she had arrived in Jackson. When Joel had surprised her with Shimmer. It was one of the only pictures she had ever had of her and Joel at all. 

She can feel her chin start to tremble as she studies it, so sure she would never have seen it again. 

She looks back to Dina, and can barely say in a hushed voice, “Thank you.”

Dina gives her a crooked grin and mouths, “You’re welcome”, and leads her down the stairs and outside.

\----------

Ellie stands in front of her on the porch, and Dina can’t do anything but look up at her. She can barely even think. She’s completely lost in the evening. Lost in the green of Ellie’s eyes.

They stand there together for far too long, and Dina wants nothing more than to press her lips against Ellie’s. To feel the smooth strength of Ellie’s tongue moving against hers again. Every part of her body is calling for it.

But it’s too much, and too fast. She just can’t bring herself to do it.

Instead, she slowly wraps her arms around Ellie’s shoulders, sliding them up to her neck, and pulls their bodies together, feeling the warmth of Ellie meld into her as she returns in kind, as Ellie’s strong arms fold around the small of her back. Dina rests her face against Ellie’s neck, breathing her in, and smile’s. 

This isn’t everything. They still have a long way to go.

But this will do.

For now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another fairly fluffy chapter, and very Ellie centric, but I felt like the one about her reconnecting with JJ should be mostly from her POV.
> 
> I'd post what I listened to while writing this, but I didn't really listen to anything while writing it, so... next time I guess.
> 
> Find me on [Tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/whiskeytango8686) . Send a writing prompt for this series if you'd like, maybe I'll run with it.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fire in the night
> 
> Going back

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing this has been so cathartic for me after playing the game, and seeing other people respond to it the way they have has been so amazing as well. Thank you all so much, hope you enjoy this next one.

Dina’s always thought it’s a strange sensation, sitting in front of the bonfire on cold nights like these. Her feet close to the pitch, her face warmed by the flames, but her back exposed to the cool dark. Any time before this she would have had Jesse huddled against her, or his arm draped around her shoulders while he told a story at her side. For years and years that’s just the way it would have been. 

Now, he stands across the fire from her, talking with someone else, only occasionally looking her way. 

She heard what everyone was saying. That this was just a break. That they’d be back together in no time. A week, two at most. They were Jesse and Dina. A youthful Jackson Institution. 

They belonged together.

If only they knew.

Dina loved Jesse, there was no denying that. He was a wonderful guy and he had made her happy and he would make someone else even happier. But even though she hadn’t admitted it to him that night, when they had ended things, she had finally, after five long years, admitted it to herself.

There was someone else.

There had always been someone else.

And _fuck,_ she was in love.

She felt it every time she saw her and every moment they were apart and knew that she always had. She was only 19, but something inside of her that she tried to fight down because it seemed so irrational and outlandish told her that she always would feel it and that thing spoke with a voice so bold and so true that she went to bed excited and afraid every night, hoping and fearing that it was right.

Once she had left Jesse’s that night, the only place she had wanted to be was with Ellie. The proper thing would have been because Ellie was her best friend and she wanted to seek comfort from her. 

But Dina didn’t want proper.

She had walked out that door and the second her feet hit the pavement her heart and her body had screamed. Screamed to go Ellie. Screamed to finally take her and be taken by her in all the ways she had imagined but could never act on until that very moment.

But her feet took her home that night instead. She was too afraid. Afraid of what could happen if Ellie didn’t want the same thing.

Dina wasn’t blind. She had seen the way Ellie looked at her. The way Ellie acted around her. But that was different from wanting to be _with_ her. Different from the way Dina wanted to be with Ellie.

So she had gone home, and thought about Ellie. And _thought_ about Ellie. And in the morning she thought about Ellie. All day she thought about Ellie. Nothing but Ellie. 

She wore herself out thinking about Ellie.

Now, at the bonfire that night, she had shown up and waited. Ellie was always late for them, or never showed up at all if Dina didn’t coax her. She hadn’t had the nerve to go and corral her herself after Ellie had gotten back from her patrol shift, had only hoped that maybe Dina’s conspicuous absence at Ellie’s front door would draw her out to the gathering all on it’s own. 

True to form, Ellie was late. She shows up an hour after Dina, carrying her guitar and a small bottle of whiskey with her. Dina can barely hide her smile. She’s glad she’s spent the last years hugging Ellie on sight anyways, giving her an excuse to run up to her and grab her now.

“Ugh, you smell _awful”,_ Dina says as she holds onto the taller girl.

“Fuckin’ good to see you too”, Ellie says, smiling at her, “Got ganged up by some infected while we were out on patrol.”

Dina is still gripping her while they walk, despite the smell, “And you didn’t change when you got home?”

“I’m coming to a bonfire, the smoke is going to cover it.”

“You’re disgusting”, _I love you._

They sit down on a log in front of the fire together, Dina barely giving Ellie any personal space, but as usual, Ellie doesn’t seem to mind. Dina loves that about her.

“How’s things with…”, Ellie nods over to Jesse.

“Things aren’t with”, Dina nods over to him as well.

“I give it a week, maybe two.”

“You too?”, Dina says incredulously.

Ellie unscrews the top from her bottle and takes a swig, “I guess… I’m just used to you two being together.”

Dina’s smile falters a little. 

“Things change. People start dating new people”, she tries to catch Ellie’s eye, but Ellie seems lost in thought, “You never know what might happen?”

Ellie turns to her, and offers her the bottle, “No, I guess not.”

Dina takes it, though she’s never really liked whiskey much. She smiles at a thought she has, and takes a sip.

It makes her whole mouth and her tongue feel warm. It tastes both earthy, and like wood. Like the smoke from the fire. As it falls down her throat she can recognize liquorice. 

_Is this how Ellie tastes?_ she wonders. Like liquorice?

She wants to know more than anything.

She moves closer, leaning in, and Ellie turns to look at her, surprise but something else, maybe… hope? On her face.

“Ellie…”, Dina says softly.

“Dina…”

But Dina’s courage fails her, ‘Will you play something?”

Ellie leans back and gives her a look Dina is sure she’s seen on Ellie’s face a hundred times before. A thousand times. 

That Ellie thinks this is all they’ll ever be.

Dina wants to prove her wrong. She will prove her wrong.

As Ellie picks up her guitar, and starts to play, singing in her high beautiful voice, Dina looks up at her and makes a promise to herself.

To both of them.

They will be so much more.

\----------

The cold of the winter months pass by in what feels like a blur, as Dina finds her heart opening up more and more, little by little, to Ellie. 

After the night of JJ’s birthday, after seeing Ellie’s love for their son written so plainly across her face and in her actions, she couldn’t have helped herself if she tried.

It started with little things. Dina would start bringing JJ with her when they would have plans to see each other, when they would share a meal together. The way Ellie would light up, like the whole world revolved around JJ was something that Dina never grew tired of seeing. Sometimes she feels like she’s not even there in the room. She starts to think that if it were anyone other than JJ she would have started to feel jealous.

At some point, Ellie’s house had slowly started to become more habitable. She started to move boxes back to Tommy's, got some semi-cozy furniture, a television. It wasn’t as big as the one she used to have, some other family must have made off with that one, but it was something, and with an old VCR. They start to spend time over there, the three of them, having lunch or dinner, playing games. Having movie nights again.

For Christmas, Dina had surprised Ellie with a new game console, a playstation. It was an older model, much boxier than the one Ellie’d had before, but that didn’t dim Ellie’s excitement at receiving it in the least. She still wrapped Dina in a hug that Dina didn’t want to end when Ellie opened the box. 

But the playstation had only been half the gift. 

When Dina had seen it sitting there in the traders box while grabbing the console, she had done a double take, certain it wasn’t what she thought it was. She opened it to make sure, and sure enough, the disc matched up. She ended up trading a lot more for it than she had originally planned, but she knew it was going to be worth it. Just to see Ellie’s reaction.

She wanted to make Ellie happy.

She wasn’t disappointed.

Ellie sits there, the unwrapped gift on her lap, her pupils dilating, her mouth wide open,

Dina is on the bed beside her, legs crossed, with an anxious smile and as she waits for Ellie to speak.

Ellie looks up at her, like she had just seen the face of God, 

“Are you fucking _kidding_ me?! How did you-Where did you even?!”, she practically screams.

Dina smiles back at her, the tip of her tongue between her teeth, and gives her a playful shrug.

Ellie grabs the gift in both hands and starts shaking it,

 _“The Turning?!”,_ she yells, holding it up to the ceiling like she was presenting it to the heavens, “THE _MOTHERFUCKIN’_ TURNING!”

Dina starts to say something, maybe “you’re welcome”, but Ellie has already leapt off the bed, picked her up, and was spinning her around the room, laughing loudly into her ear, Dina’s arms wrapping around her neck, laughing in kind.

“Thank you-thank you- _thank you!”,_ Ellie said, putting Dina back on her feet. “You’re the fucking best.”

Dina is overcome by Ellie’s closeness to her, the feel of being wrapped up in her arms like that. She has to force herself to look over at the console, away from Ellie’s face, so close to hers, 

“You-uh… you going to play it or just tell me how great I already know I am?”, she manages out.

Ellie doesn’t need to be told twice, and is already running back to the tv. 

They spent the rest of the day on the bed, Ellie sitting on the edge with a controller in her hands, furiously mashing away at buttons, JJ in her lap clapping and screaming along whenever Ellie yelled in a low monotone _“ANGEL KNIVES!”._ Dina tried playing it with her for a bit, but found she just enjoyed watching more.

That was the first night Dina and JJ stayed over. They hadn’t intended to, but before they knew it, it was very late, and JJ was very, very asleep. After a few awkward moments and feigned deliberations, they both decided they were adults. They can share a room together. 

Ellie still slept on the couch. 

That night.

The next time Dina and JJ accidentally stay too late, Dina insists Ellie sleeps in her own bed. JJ is between them, what’s the harm? 

One day the following week, Dina finds an old crib and brings it with her to Ellie’s, and after that, JJ doesn’t sleep between them anymore.

They gravitate closer every night, until eventually, one morning, they find themselves awake, tangled in each other, and neither pulls away. Without any mention of it, the next night they curl into each other again, and Dina falls asleep faster than she has since she can remember.

She had always slept better in Ellie’s arms, and Ellie in hers.

But sleeping is all they do. 

Dina hasn’t been able to bring herself to take that one final step since they almost kissed the night of JJ’s party. So many times she’s wanted to, and she knows Ellie has too. The desire for each other is magnetic, the feel of inevitability all around it. But something unspoken between them keeps holding her back.

Ellie doesn’t push it, moves at her speed, but Dina can tell she’s beginning to crack a little. Every night they lie together and their breath intermingles as they say goodnight, and she can smell Ellie so close to her, the moment lingers just a little longer before their heads rest. 

And Dina can’t deny that as time goes on, Ellie seems more and more like herself again. Her smile is softer and easier. Her jokes are dumber and more frequent. 

She still has moments from time to time when she experiences an episode, but when Dina is there, she’s able to calm her, and Ellie tells her that even when she’s not, she can calm herself. The change in that alone takes Dina’s breath away.

Most of all, she’s here.

Ellie is still here.

\----------

Ellie dislodges herself from Dina wrapped around her in her bed. It was Ellie’s night with JJ, and Dina had stayed after dinner to watch a movie, and like has been happening so often recently, just like when they were younger and pretending not to be in love with each other, Dina had fallen asleep in Ellie’s arms. 

Ellie looks down at her, a smile on her face, and brushes some of the hair away from her eyes. Dina’s head moves into the touch, and she moans softly, but she doesn’t seem to wake. 

She moves over to the crib to check on JJ. As asleep as ever. The kid could sleep through anything, it seemed like. 

Ellie can hardly believe this is her life. If she prayed, she would have prayed every day for it. 

The only thing missing is what her and Dina used to be. It seems like they’re so close. Every time they say goodbye, every time they whisper goodnight, it seems like that will be the time. Dina will kiss her again. But each time she pulls away. 

Ellie understands, or she tries to understand.

But she wants it more than anything.

She goes to her bathroom and splashes some cold water on her face to try to prepare for another night of sleeping next to Dina. She’d sleep next to her like this for the rest of her life if Dina would let her, but it helps to cool down first.

While she’s walking back in, she picks up the button up Dina has discarded earlier when they had gotten into bed, and begins to fold it so she can put it next to Dina’s nightstand. As she flips it over in half, a small strip of heavy paper falls from the chest pocket to the floor. Ellie bends to pick it up, flips it over, and it takes her a few seconds to even register what it is she’s seeing. Like the thing in her hand doesn’t belong where she’s found it, that it must be some sort of mistake. 

Smiling back up at her, is her. Several years younger, but she knows the picture well. She used to look at it every night in this very room. She knows where the rest of it is, sitting in a frame on a cabinet in JJ’s nursery.

She runs her thumb down the fraying edge of the torn side, and looks over at Dina, burrowing deeper into the comfort of Ellie’s bed. How long has she carried this with her? Just for tonight? Since Ellie came back to Jackson?

Since she left?

Ellie wants to put it back in the pocket. To pretend she never saw it. 

But she has to know.

She sits down on the bed next to Dina and lightly puts her hand on her arm, rubbing it with her thumb. 

“Hey… Dina, hey”, she whispers, rubbing until Dina stirs.

Dina moans, and opens one eye to look at her, saying “Come back to bed… make more with the being a pillow and less with the…”, she raises her hand and makes a talking gesture with it.

Ellie smiles at her but persists. “C’mon, I need to ask you something.”

More groaning, “I told you, I’m just a natural 9, a 10 when I’m sleeping. I don’t know why I look so much bet-”

Ellie slips the photograph into her palm as she’s talking, and her eyes shoot open, like she’s felt something familiar in her hand. 

Dina looks down at it, and back up to Ellie, suddenly very awake, sitting up against the headboard “Where did you…”

Ellie holds her hands up, “I wasn’t snooping, I promise. I was just folding your shirt and it fell-”

 _“You_ were folding clothes?”, Dina says, eyebrow raised.

“I’m trying new things”, Ellie grins, moving closer to her on the bed, putting her arms on either side of her. Dina looks back at the photograph, avoiding Ellie’s gaze, until Ellie asks her softly.

“Dina… ”

Dina meets her eyes, her voice small and breathy, “Ellie…I…when you left…”, she leans forward a little towards Ellie, “It’s like having a piece of you with me.”

They look at each others lips in unison as they move closer, Dina whispering

“I _needed_ you… with me”

Ellie can’t wait any more. She needs Dina again. Needs to feel her love and her lips. 

Dina seems to feel the same way as they move against each other, their lips brushing, and Ellie can feel her whole body coming alive again.

But just as soon as Ellie is about to pull Dina into her, Dina puts her hand against Ellie’s chest and rests her forehead against Ellie’s, breathing heavily, her eyes shut.

Ellie sighs, and whispers, “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t ha-”

“No…”, Dina says between rapid breaths, “No… I want this. I want… I want _you.”_

Dina opens her eyes and Ellie is immediately lost in the warm brown depths, not able to believe what she’s hearing.

“I want you _so_ fucking bad, Ellie.”

Ellie’s lips start to glide up.

“But…”

Isn’t there always a “but”.

“I _have_ to know first… what happened out there.”

Ellie leans back and looks at Dina as she does the same. She doesn’t have to say where. Ellie knows exactly the place she means. 

Santa Barbara. They had still never talked about it. All this time since Ellie had returned and they had been trying to build something again they had danced around it. 

Was this what was holding Dina back? Ellie had been so afraid of telling her about what had happened out there. What she had done. Maybe Dina had been just as scared to know. 

“Dina, I…”

“Please…”, Dina whispers, desperation seeping into her voice. “I have to know.”

Ellie brings both hands to her mouth and takes a deep breath, looking over at JJ’s crib, unsure of where to even start. Dina reaches out and takes her hand and holds it in hers.

“It took two months… to find her boat.”, Ellie says her eyes still on JJ, “She wasn’t there, but there were notes, and a map, so I followed them, and- ”

Her face twists as she remembers. Dina lightly rubs the back of Ellie’s hand with her thumb, urging her to continue.

“I got hurt… this”, she points to the old wound on her side, the scar that Dina had run her hand along while they held each other in the night during the past months but never asked her about.

Dina instinctively reaches out to touch it, and Ellie flinches, but Dina rests her hand against her and listens.

Ellie isn’t looking at JJ anymore, she’s not really looking at anything. “These people… these… _fucking_ people had captured her. Her and that boy. And I found them... and…”, she can feel her body starting to shake. She never wanted to tell Dina any of this. “...I killed them. I killed _so_ many of them, Di.”

Dina takes Ellie’s face in her hand and makes her look at her, “The slavers? Ellie, you _saved_ people. I’ve seen them thank-”

Ellie shakily grabs her hand as tears start to run onto her cheeks, “I didn’t care. I-I didn’t _fucking_ care. I saw what they were doing and I just wanted to get to _her.”_

Dina swallows heavily, searching her eyes. “... did you?”

Ellie closes her eyes and nods slowly.

“On the beach… outside. She was hanging from some pole. Almost dead. She didn’t even look like the same person. Didn't even look like a person at all. And I cut her down… and she cut that boy down and-”, the tears are falling like rain, and she has to stop to try to compose herself. She feels Dina pull her against her chest, and Ellie weeps into her shirt while Dina strokes her hair.

“Take your time… it’s ok…”, Dina says to her.

After a few moments, Ellie leans back up and wipes at both her eyes. “I was going to let them go, I swear to god, I was going to, but I just… I couldn’t. I couldn’t fucking do it. I made her fight me” 

She looks away from Dina’s concerned face, “I put a knife to that boy's throat and I _made_ her.”

When she looks back, Dina’s face is unreadable, a mask, and that scares Ellie more than anything. Dina is seeing her again, Ellie thinks. The Ellie she was afraid of. 

Ellie can only continue, unable to meet Dina’s eyes, 

“So… we fought. On the beach. In the water. God, did we fucking fight.”

Her fingers burn where Abby had bitten them off, and she rubs at them, trying to look back at Dina but can’t. 

“She took my fingers off, but I had her. I fucking _had_ her. Under the water. I was cho-”

Her voice cracks as the part of her inside that will never let go keeps whispering that she should have just done it. 

She takes a deep breath, as steady as she can, and looks back at Dina to see tears in her eyes, like she’s ready to accept that Ellie had fallen all the way down and she was just waiting to hear it.

“... and then I let go. I let her go. I just-I couldn’t do it, Di.”

Her shoulders are shaking, and she feels like she’s going to break apart at the admission, but Dina smiles a small smile, and takes her hand.

“Ellie… I…”, Dina shakes her head, and leans into her, folding her arms around her, “I can’t imagine how hard that must have been, after everything, but I’m _so_ proud of you.”

Ellie cries into her shoulder, holding on to her like she’s the only thing left in the world.

“I thought I’d lost you…”, Dina whispers, “Before you left the farm even… I thought I’d lost you.”

“It was Joel”, Ellie says, muffled against Dina’s skin, “I remembered the last night we spoke. The night of the dance. I was ready to forgive him then…”

Ellie regrets the words the moment they leave her mouth.

Dina asks, “Forgive him for what?”

Ellie leans back, unsure of what to say. She had still never told Dina about what Joel had done, why she had left for a month years ago, why there had been tension between them for so long. Why her rage was so strong when he was taken from her right when the sun was just starting to shine for them again.

But what can she say now? She can’t lie to Dina any longer. Can’t hold back. Not if she wants anything for them together.

Dina is looking at her with all the understanding in the world, and Ellie only hopes she remains that way.

“Joel… I…”, she starts, unsure of where to begin.

“Ellie, what is it?”, Dina tries, but Ellie decides to just say it.

“Before we came to Jackson… Joel was taking me to the Fireflies. They were going to find a cure, for… all this, using me.”

Dina’s eyes go wide, but she stays silent.

“When we got there, I was put under, but they told Joel that to make the cure it would… it would kill me.”, Ellie keeps her eyes fixed on Dina’s face, watching her every small change of expression, waiting for the moment the news breaks her. “Joel killed them instead.”

Dina’s hand shoots to her mouth as she tries to hold in a gasp.

“He took me away while I was still asleep, and when I… when I woke he said there wasn’t a cure. That there were dozens like me and that there was nothing that could be done. And I tried to believe him. For years I tried to…”

Dina isn’t looking at her anymore, tears on her cheeks, her eyebrows knit. Ellie feels like she’s losing her all over again with each word, but she can’t stop herself.

“I went back to Salt Lake and found a tape recorder in the hospital… Joel followed me. I made him tell me the truth. And I hated him for it...And then… Abby… her people. They were… they were Fireflies. It took them years, but they found him. They-”

Dina shoots up from the bed, and starts throwing her clothes back on.

Ellie panics, trying to think of something, anything to save this.

“Dina, I’m sorry! I’m _sorry!_ It’s my fault there isn’t…that there isn’t a cure, that JJ is going to have to grow up in this fucked up world, that-”

Dina turns on her, her pants unzipped, her shirt unbuttoned, her eyes wild, “Really, Ellie? _Really?!_ You think I give a shit about that?”

Ellie feels like she’s being blindsided, “What else-”

“That was Joel’s choice! It’s not _your_ fault there isn’t a cure! Of course I wish this wasn’t how the world was, but you didn’t make it that way! And you think-”, her voice starts to tremble and she looks like she’s barely holding in something that’s fighting to get out. “You think I wouldn’t have done the _exact_ same thing as him? You think there isn’t _anything,_ fucking _anything_ I wouldn’t have given, _anything_ I wouldn't have done to have you back when I thought you were dead?!”

Ellie has been hit by Bloaters that packed less of a punch. She had never, not once, considered that Joel wasn’t the only one who may have made the choice he did. The only one who would have given up the world and everyone in it to keep her with them.

Dina fights to button her shirt but keeps missing the loops and gives up, just going to grab her coat.

Ellie runs over to her. “Dina, if it’s not that then what? I don’t understand, why are you so-”

“Because you never told me, you idiot! You never _told_ me!”, Dina says pushing her.

“I didn't think you’d understand…”

“You didn’t give me the chance! Maybe it would have helped me understand everything, Ellie? Why you still felt like you had to go after her. Why everything was still so unresolved for you. I don’t know. I don’t know. You didn’t give me the chance.”

Frustration starts to boil up in Ellie. She knows she hasn’t always been the most open, but she’s been trying.

“I’m telling you now! I wasn’t trying to hide it from you anymore!”

“A little late, don’t you think?”, Dina smirks, pulling on her boots.

“Dina, don’t leave, please! Not like this”, Ellie begs.

Dina stops, sitting on the coffee table, staring at the floor, and says quietly,

“What do you want from me Ellie?”

Something inside Ellie snaps, and it all comes pouring out, as she falls to a knee in front of Dina’s face, cupping it with both hands.

“You, Dina, I want _you._ I want us. I miss you like crazy even when you’re here. I want to fucking kiss you all the time. I want to be on that bed between your legs, right now. I want us again. We can do it. I know we can.” Ellie wipes Dina’s tear away with her thumbs, “we can be _us_ again.”

Dina holds Ellie’s hands in both of hers, and starts to smile, but it fades as she pulls Ellie’s hand away, and she says, “I want that. I want it, Ellie but… I’m scared. I don’t know if it’s possible again. I feel like a wolf with a braid took it from us.”

Ellie lets her hands rest in Dina’s lap, but stares into her eyes. “But who’s stopping us now?”

Dina’s face changes, softening and Ellie thinks for a moment she’s made it through to her, but she says quietly.

“Ellie… I…”, Dina sighs, “I have to go.”

Ellie falls back on her heels, defeated, “What about JJ?”

The baby is still, somehow, asleep in his crib.

Dina stands and heads for the door, “It’s your night with him.”, and leaves.

\----------

Dina didn’t find any sleep that night.

It wasn’t the admission that Ellie hadn’t killed Abby, though that had made her happier than she ever would have guessed to hear about someone who had once beaten her face in. Knowing that Ellie hadn’t given in to that dark part of herself… she finally knew for certain that Ellie was going to be alright, someday.

It wasn’t even that Ellie had never told her about what Joel had done. As startling as it had been to hear, and as angry as she had been that Ellie hadn’t trusted her with it before, she wasn’t lying when she told Ellie she would have done the same thing. She found she didn’t even mind the darkness she saw in herself when she looked at that. 

It was one of the truest things she had ever known.

_“But who’s stopping us now?”_

Those five little words. They were keeping her up.

Ellie had said them, but she had been thinking it herself for months now.

Ellie was back. She was here. She was real and alive. She wasn’t leaving.

And Ellie loved her.

And Dina loved Ellie.

Dina had loved Ellie since they were just kids. Before she even really knew what love was. 

She loved her now as fiercely as she ever had.

And now she was holding on to all this resentment… for what?

Even she didn’t know anymore.

The next morning, Dina practically runs back to Ellie’s house, and throws the door open, to be met with a sight that she had hoped she’d never see again.

Ellie is kneeling in front of her pack, loading her revolver, her jacket already on. Looking like she’s already two steps out of Jackson.

Dina swallows hard as Ellie turns to look at her as the door swings open, JJ bouncing up and down in his crib shouting “Mama!” at the sight of Dina standing there.

“So… you’re”, the words are like concrete in her mouth, unwilling to move, “You’re just leav-”

Ellie stands and rushes over to her, “No! Fuck, no! Of course not”

Dina looks at her pack and her gun “Then what’s this, because the last I saw them you were-”

Ellie picks up JJ like a shield, and shakes her head, “I was just… I was just going to go out”

“Where?”, Dina demands, her voice more desperate than she means it to be.

“To the farm”, Ellie admits.

Dina wasn’t expecting… that.

“Oh…”

“Yeah, I just… I thought there were some things…”

“Have you gone out there before, since you’ve been back I mean?”, Dina asks, still trying to take it in.

“Just the once… the day you were attacked on patrol. I just thought. I don’t know. I just thought it was time.”

Dina just slowly nods, “...Oh.”

Ellie smiles down at JJ, who's pulling at her jacket, “Can I walk you two home first, before I head out?”

Dina nods again, watching Ellie as they both walk out the door.

She doesn’t know why, but as they’re standing outside Robin and Mitchell’s house, JJ back inside playing with Robin, Ellie about to head out, Dina just knows.

“It’s a pretty long ride, El. Should probably have someone watch your back”, she says as she walks past Ellie, not waiting for a reply.

They ride the whole way on borrowed horses in mutual silence. It’s more comfortable for Dina than she was expecting, despite what happened the last time she was on this trail. She lingers in the clearing where Anya and Antony spent their final moments, and says a short prayer for them. Ellie waits for her, and they carry on.

They reach the gate around noon, and Dina couldn’t put into words everything she’s feeling if she tried. She wonders if Ellie could, if she were to write them down.

The memories of coming here for the first time with Ellie. The memory of leaving for the last time without her. And all the wonderful and heart wrenching ones that took place in between. 

When she looks over at Ellie, standing there on the porch of that place with her again, Dina doesn’t know what happens. She doesn’t know how to explain it. 

All of it stops, and everything clicks into place.

Ellie walks in first, and Dina follows moments later.

On the ride a part of Dina had intended to walk the whole house, take in every bit of it. Try to absorb every remainder of the joy and laughter that had occurred inside these walls. But that part of her is the one that had been holding on. 

Not to love.

But to pain.

To loss.

To everything that had been instead of everything that was right in front of her.

Ellie was _right in front of her._

Right now.

This very moment. 

And so when Ellie heads straight up the stairs, Dina follows, and doesn’t look back.

They go into Ellie’s room, and instead of the wave of sadness that had hit her the last time she had opened this door, Dina smiles when she sees the walls.

The wind from the open window had scattered some of Ellie’s work down, but some pieces still hung, and each one drew Dina’s eye, and it was like she was seeing it for the first time. 

And when she looked at Ellie standing there in the center of it all, it was as if she was seeing her for the first time again too. 

Not the young, reckless, smartass, wonderful girl she had met in front of the theater.

But the beautiful, strong, funny, broken but mending woman she never wanted to be parted from again.

The love of her life.

Ellie is distracted, looking through things, and Dina is falling apart with each breath, coming back together with each heartbeat.

Ellie draws out a bottle from one of the boxes, her old whiskey, the one Dina had tried to drink two weeks after Ellie had left and couldn’t, and she smiles over at Dina, completely oblivious to the explosion of feeling pouring out of her, 

“I haven’t in a while, but…”, Ellie pulls off the top and shakes the bottle lightly, “care to share a drink with me? For old times sake?”

Dina walks over and stands in front of her, not even sure if she’s said anything, only watching as Ellie takes a drink from the bottle. 

She takes it from Ellie, and takes a sip, but she already knows what it’ll taste like to her.

The liquid hits her tongue.

It only tastes like whiskey.

How could she have ever confused this with Ellie?

Ellie’s taste was singular. 

Perfect.

She’ll never confuse the two again.

\----------

_Dina is acting weird._

The only thing Ellie can think, as Ellie takes the bottle back from her, Dina’s eyes never having left hers as she drank from it. It was weirdly… erotic?

It definitely made Ellie feel things. 

She had been so quiet the whole trip, and if it was possible to be even more quiet than “absolutely silent”, that's what Dina had been ever since they walked into the house. 

Ellie supposed she probably hadn’t been here since whenever she had left, so she was probably just having a hard time with it.

Ellie takes another sip of the whiskey, as Dina turns and looks around the room, stopping on the old guitar sitting against the window. Seeing that again had been one of many “hardest” hard parts of being back here. Ellie wasn’t intending on bringing it back with her, thinking it was best to let that memory stay.

Dina picked it up and studied it, and looked over at Ellie, like she had an idea suddenly come to her.

“Sit down”, Dina says, commandingly.

Ellie can see where this is going, and she holds up her ruined hand, “Dina, I don’t play anymore. I couldn’t even if I-”

“Sit down, right there”, Dina says again, pointing at the guitar case, while she pulls the chair against the wall close to it, and sits down herself.

Ellie does as she’s told, apparently not seeing where this is going, “Dina, what are-”

“Ellie, just… for once. Shut the fuck up.”

Dina sits the guitar in her lap, and to Ellie’s surprise, begins to tune it. Had she learned how to do that just from watching Ellie? Ellie had to admit she was kind of impressed.

“I still don’t want to pla-”

Dina gives her a warning look, and finishes tuning, and Ellie watches her fingers in amazement as they form an effortless chord on the frets. 

Ellie is about to speak again, when Dina looks at her one last time, then closes her eyes tight, strums out a single establishing chord, and begins to sing slowly, in an unsure, soft voice.

_“I call you… when I need you, and my heart’s on fire”_

It hits Ellie like an arrow. Like a bullet. Like every single thing that’s ever wounded her. She recognizes the song immediately.

_“You come to me, come to me, wild and wired.”_

Ellie’s heart hammers in her chest, and she closes her eyes too, trying and failing to stop her chest from heaving. 

_“Mmmm, you come to me… give me everything I need.”_

Ellie can’t take it, and she grabs the neck of the guitar, her palms muting the strings. Dina barely responds, just opening her eyes, like she was expecting it. 

“Dina… I…”, Ellie tries to stammer out, but Dina just runs her hand along Ellie’s face.

“Let me,” she whispers, giving Ellie a small nod, telling her it’s ok.

Ellie slowly lets go, and leans away.

Dina closes her eyes and begins again, this time beginning to pick out individual notes in the chords, and Ellie is mesmerized by her. She had never even mentioned she had started to learn. Ellie knows, without a hint of ego, that it was to keep her close while she was gone, and that fills her heart and breaks it at the same time.

_“Give me a lifetime of promises, and a world of dreams._  
_Speak the language of love like you know what it means.”_

Dina’s voice is sweet, and growing in confidence as she sings, though she hasn’t opened her eyes. Ellie remembers playing this song. The last day she was here. In the early morning for JJ. She had never finished.

Now here Dina was, finishing it for her.

_“Mmmm and it can’t be wrong_  
_Take my heart and make it strong.”_

Dina was playing it differently, not quite the same as Ellie had, making it new. 

_“In your heart I see the start of every night and every day,_  
_In your eyes I get lost, I get washed away”_

Ellie had played it the way she had, composed it the way she had, for Dina.

_“Just as long as you’re here in my arms I could be in no better place”_

Ellie knew Dina was playing it for her now.

Dina opened her eyes and looked into Ellie’s, and Ellie felt every inch of her body fill up with all of Dina’s love for her that she had doubted until that moment still existed. 

There was no denying it now.

_“You’re simply the best. Better than all the rest._  
_Better than anyone. Anyone I ever met.”_

Ellie gets off of the guitar case onto her knees in front of Dina, a smile starting to spread across both of their faces, as Dina begins to sing more bravely, her heart in every word.

_“I’m stuck on your heart. I hang on every word you say._  
_Tear us apart? Baby, I would rather be dead.”_

Ellie feels like she’s worshipping at the altar of Dina, her hands on Dina’s knees, Dina’s eyes closed again as she sings.

_“Each time you leave me I start losing control,_  
_you’re walking away with my heart and my soul_  
_I can feel you even when I’m alone_  
_Oh, baby-”_

\--------

Dina strums against muted strings, and she stops, feeling Ellie pressing against the guitar again. 

She opens her eyes to find Ellie breathing heavily right in front of her, their foreheads pressed together. Dina’s breath is labored as well, but she knows it’s not from singing. Ellie takes the guitar out of her hands and sets it none too gently on the floor, returning her hands to either side of the chair. 

Dina hadn’t known what had come over her when she saw the guitar. It was like she just knew then why she had learned that song she heard in Robin and Mitchell’s house. Why she’d had to learn it.

Ellie had sung to her so many times.

She deserved to have someone sing to her for once.

They stare into each other's eyes, only inches apart. 

Dina’s hands slowly brush up Ellie’s arms, finding their way to her back, her neck, her fingers running into her hair, as Ellie’s move off the chair and slowly grip Dina’s hips.

Dina spreads her legs and moves forward on the chair, and Ellie leans into her, filling the space between them, until one of Dina’s calves is resting lightly around Ellie’s thigh.

Ellie looks down at Dina’s open mouth as Dina does the same.

In one last hushed sound, Dina whispers

“This better be better than-”

Her voice is swallowed by the crush of Ellie’s lips against hers, and she’s never been more happy to be shut up in her entire life.

The kiss is not like their first, in the heat of the church. 

It’s not like their second in the basement of the library.

It’s not like any kiss they’ve shared.

It’s a year of kisses they’ll never get back.

But a promise to try.

It’s better than a six.

Dina claws hungrily at Ellie’s back, searching for every inch of her as Ellie moves underneath her hands, getting her feet under her legs, and lifting Dina out of the chair.

Dina locks her legs around Ellie’s waist and bites her lip as Ellie pushes her against the wall, then leads them out the door and down the hall into their old bedroom.

The mattress is dusty, and there’s leaves blown in on it, and they don’t care. Ellie drops Dina on the bed, and Dina is immediately up again, tearing at Ellie’s clothes.

They have so much time to make up for, and Dina isn’t about to waste any more of it with clothes between them.

\----------

Hours later, after they’re dressed again, and the sun is lower in the sky, they both sit on the bed and look at each other, seeing one another with eyes both the same as they once did and with ones bright and new.

Neither can stop smiling. 

They both know.

Where this house once saw an end, they just made a new beginning.

They both want to speak.

They both want to say that they love the other.

That they always have.

That there was only ever Ellie.

That there will only ever be Dina.

But for now, it doesn’t need to be said.

They know.

They’ve always known, even if they let themselves forget for a while.

Together, they gather some of Ellie’s things. Some of the paintings. Joel’s wood carvings.

The record player and some albums, taking "Shaken by a Low Sound" first. They want to hear those songs again. Dance with each other again. 

They’ve got time.

They hold each other's hands as they walk down the stairs, and kiss once more in the living room, a slow lingering kiss that will be the first of many that isn’t rushed by the need to say with kisses what they couldn’t say for so long with their voices.

They don’t close the door when they go, the screen slowly clapping shut behind them as they walk to their horses. 

In all their long years together to come, they’ll only come here one more time.

But they don’t look back as they leave.

They look at each other.

And they smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was obviously the culmination of a lot, and it was really special (and difficult) to write. A lot of callbacks to earlier chapters and things from the game. Have a surprise for the next one, probably be a day or two before I post it.
> 
> The song I listened to while writing this was Childish Gambinos cover of "So Into You". I think you can only find it on youtube, but man. It's excellent.
> 
> BONUS: I just found this, and I got a real kick out of it. My original notes for what would eventually be this chapter, but I think was originally going to be Chapter 9:
> 
> "Dina and Ellie start spending time together outside of sleep
> 
> Time passes, Ellie begins to prove herself without meaning to again to Dina, just by being there. The old Ellie is still alive.
> 
> Something TBD happens with JJ, Ellie handles it like a BOSS, Dina’s heart is overwhelmed
> 
> Eventually they kiss, but Dina can’t handle it, they argue (“who’s keeping us apart now?”)
> 
> Dina brings her guitar over, and sings The Best to Ellie, they GET DOWN (Ellie stops her from finishing the song, they lean heads together, eyes closed, Dina: This had better be than a…) after a lot of crying. So much crying. Basically, this whole story is about two ladies crying."
> 
> Find me on [Tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/whiskeytango8686) . Send a writing prompt for this series if you'd like, maybe I'll run with it.


	12. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't want to put it in the whole story tags, so I'm putting it here. Trigger warning, click on the end notes for it.

Days pass into months.

Months into years.

The unspoken promise made in that old house never falters.

Dina is never without Ellie again.

\----------

A year after Ellie returns, they go back to that dusty library out on the Creek Trail, just the two of them. 

Dina has rejoined the Patrols, but they haven’t come to scout.

When they left the walls, everyone laughed and questioned why they were dressed so nicely, but they didn’t give a hint to anyone, just rode away.

In that basement, with nothing else around except some dead plants and a stack of porn, they look into each other’s eyes and make their commitments.

For the second time in that room, Dina smashes a glass on the floor, stepping on it this time, and they make the couch their own.

Dina walks out of there holding her wife’s hand, and no one can ever tell her otherwise. 

\----------

The time together is not always easy.

Life is not easy.

Ellie’s episodes never truly stop. The intensity, the frequency just fades. 

Like she had always feared, those memories would haunt her forever.

They argue. They fight.

No one could ever say that Dina can’t match Ellie for stubbornness. 

Nights are spent on couches instead of next to each other in bed.

But they’re never apart when they wake up in the morning, a tangle of limbs, having found their way back to each other in the night.

\----------

When JJ is 10, he looks more like Jesse with every passing day. They named him well. 

He’s with his grandfather, learning how to construct a table when the heart attack hits.

Mitchell bears it well, and carries on for a few more days. 

He says his goodbyes to everyone. Ellie promises while gripping his hand that she’ll take care of them, but Mitchell won’t let her finish. 

He already knows she will.

He tells her he’s leaving the wood shop to her, and the only thing he asks is that she does a better job than he did.

Ellie doesn’t cry until she leaves the room, but she doesn’t stop until she gets home.

Robin is with him when he goes.

She tells Dina some time later that Mitchell had asked her on his final day to try to be happy. To marry again. 

She was. 

But she never did.

\--------

Dina finds herself enthralled by how Ellie takes to a more domestic life over the years. 

Ellie had always worried she couldn’t be a good mother. A good partner. Live in society.

That she was just something feral, waiting to be let loose.

But even after years of tending to the shop, and raising JJ, and being Dina’s wife, it seems to suit Ellie more and more everyday. 

Ellie never stops surprising her.

\----------

Just like she shouldn’t have been surprised the day she learned that the wild part of Ellie was still inside.

Jackson had long since become a larger, more thriving community, the areas around it routinely completely cleared of infected and hunters. 

And that meant wider areas to sweep, which meant new territory.

Dina was in one such area with two others when they were boxed in by a horde. 

They moved from place to place, trying to stay ahead of the infected, until the only “safe” location was a spore infested warehouse. 

They should have been back to Jackson hours and hours ago, but no one had come yet.

They knew they couldn’t leave where they were, trapped there, but the filters in their masks only had about 15 hours left on them.

Ellie found them in 6.

Through all the noise and gunshots and screaming, Dina couldn’t tell what was happening outside, until the sound of the horde thinned into silence, and there was a knock on the barricaded door.

When they opened it, standing there, flames burning behind her, bloody and beautiful and glorious, was Ellie, that wild look still in her eyes.

Nothing could have ever kept her from Dina.

\----------

Fifteen years after Ellie came back, Maria got sick. 

It was sudden, and fast, and it seemed like nothing anyone could do helped, and soon she was gone.

Tommy was never the same afterwards. 

They had never truly reconciled, the two of them, but sometimes Maria would go over to Tommy’s, and not leave until morning. 

Some part of them, even through all the pain of the years, was never able to let the other go.

Maybe their love was just like that.

Six months later, Tommy disappeared.

Ellie went to his house, intending to start tracking him, but she found a note on a guitar in the living room instead.

She never told Dina what it said, and Dina didn’t ask, only held her as she cried. Dina and Tommy had never come back around to each other, but she knew that Tommy had been Ellie’s last living link to her father, and she mourned for him in that way.

Ellie kept the guitar and restrung it so she could learn how to play it with her left hand. The guitar had a two letter inscription on the back, at the base of the neck.

_J.M._

JJ was naturally left handed, and Ellie taught him how to play on that guitar too.

Tommy left Joel’s house to them, but Ellie turned it down, insisting a new family take it.

She had her family here.

Dina still sees her smile sadly every time they walk down that street.

They finally replace Ellie’s headstone in the cemetery with one for Tommy, the grave just as empty as Ellie’s had been. 

\----------

Despite it running in the family, JJ never goes out on patrol.

He joins Ellie, working in the wood shop, and soon he’s more apt at it than she is.

Ellie likes to say it’s just because he has all ten fingers but Dina knows she doesn’t care.

She’s just happy to see him every day. 

Though for Dina that year apart had become something like a scar that fades so much into your skin that you forget how you got it, for Ellie, it’s always present. She never forgets how close she came to almost losing this life.

For her, living without this would have been no life at all.

She tries to tell Dina that once, and Dina kisses her and calls her the stupidest woman in the world.

Ellie will never lose them.

Dina knows that she can’t really promise that. 

Ellie could lose them at any moment. 

This world was so dangerous, so vile. 

But she promises anyways, and hopes.

\----------

When JJ is 24, a pretty young girl named Anabel comes to Jackson, and Dina knows before he does.

He had been just like his father, though older now than Jesse had ever been. Smooth talking, handsome. The girls around town all loved him.

But Dina knew when she saw JJ trip over himself trying to follow Anabel around.

They got married 2 years later, at a party that practically the whole town shows up for.

A band plays, but at one point, Dina, Ellie and JJ all stop and play guitar together.

In what has become a lifetime of happier days than she ever could have expected, Dina would call that one of the happiest.

\----------

9 months later, Ellie and Dina’s first grandchild is born, and that becomes a new happiest day. 

JJ and Anabel name him Mitchell, and Dina’s heart melts all over again getting to watch Ellie with a baby.

Dina doesn’t know what she ever did to earn this life, but she promises then to keep doing it, whatever it is.

\----------

The years wear on, and Dina’s love for Ellie only grows, it’s roots burrowing deep and its branches sprouting wildly. 

She never grows tired of feeling Ellie’s hands on her as she sleeps.

Her arms around her as they dance.

Her lips on her when they kiss.

Ellie still smiles at her every time she comes into a room the same way she did when they were teenagers. That same huge, ear to ear smile, and Dina’s heart still flips in her chest every time she sees it.

She feels it in her heart and in her toes. 

She knows Ellie does too.

\----------

They’re both 67, much older than either of them could have ever hoped to live in their younger days, the first time it happens.

Ellie was cooking breakfast in their house, the one they had shared for 46 years.

Dina had walked in and poured some tea for herself and kissed Ellie on the cheek, asking

“You want to visit Mitchell today?”

Ellie gave her a strange look, “You feelin’ nostalgic?”

Dina had laughed, and just shrugged. 

Ellie went back to cooking, “Sounds fine. I haven’t been to see Joel in a while either, guess I could stop by while we’re there.”

Dina looked at her, confused, “No, I… I mean Mitchell, our grandson Mitchell?”

“We don’t have a grand… oh, right, yeah. Sounds good, let’s do that.”

Dina hadn’t taken that lightly. 

Soon, she noticed Ellie forgetting other things as well. 

Simple things. Where she had put something. A new person’s name.

But sometimes it’s that they have a grandson. Or where their house is.

Ellie shrugs it off. People say you forget things when you get older. 

Joel said it all the time and Ellie’s older now than he was.

It still scares Dina.

\----------

Medicine isn’t what it was.

Nearly 75 years without any newly medical school trained doctors has left a dearth of specialists, but what they are able to find out is that the trauma induced by Ellie’s episodes likely didn’t help.

All they’re able to tell Dina is that it won’t get better. 

Her beautiful, amazing wife will just slowly forget. Everything.

Joel.

JJ. Anabel. Mitchell.

Her.

They should try to enjoy the time they have left.

Even though Dina feels like they’ve stolen every minute they’ve ever had, she knows there will never be enough time.

\----------

Ellie does fairly well for years, her memory not slipping much more than it seemed to at first.

Then at 71, Dina collapses while out on their porch.

They can’t know for sure, there aren’t the proper tests to run, the doctor in town tells her. It could be any number of things. It could be nothing.

But Dina feels weaker every day.

She feels it in her bones.

Ellie does her best to take care of her, but the stress of it, of watching her wife of 50 years start to slip away from her, begins to make her own symptoms grow worse as well.

Dina doesn’t know what to do.

\----------

Six month later, when Dina’s hands begin to shake and they won’t stop, she knows with a sharp clarity that she will go first.

She’ll leave Ellie alone, to eventually not even remember Dina’s face or the life they shared together.

Ellie knows it too.

And neither one will allow that.

They decide together, on one of Ellie’s clear days.

They only tell JJ and Anabel. They were raised in their early years when the world was still angry enough, dark enough to understand. 

Mitchell has only known these better days, and Dina and Ellie are so thankful for it.

\----------

JJ walks out of the front door of the farm, and turns to look at the women who raised him, sitting together on the front porch, hand in hand. He doesn’t remember this place, but they’ve told him about it. 

He knows he was born here. That he spent the first 5 months of his life here. He knows he left because Mom had something she felt like she had to do, and Mama just couldn’t stay there without her. 

He never asked more. 

Mom always looked sad whenever that time was mentioned, but then Mama always just kissed her tenderly on the cheek, and Mom would smile again.

He wipes his hands on his trousers, 

“Welp, it was pretty dusty in there. Had to chase some birds out.”

He’s been preparing for this for days, but he doesn’t feel ready. He tries to keep his voice even.

“But I think it should be all set…”

He puts his hands in his pockets as they both turn away from the sunset and smile up at him. The summer wind blows through the pines and the tall grass, moving their hair about their faces. JJ feels the tears starting to fall unbidden at the sight, and both of his mother’s stand slowly and hold him until his crying breaks.

He stands back, a hand on each of their faces and hopes they’ll change their minds, knowing they won’t. He’s never met two people more stubborn than his mothers. Two people more in love and unwilling to part, whatever the cost.

“Are you sure?”, he says to them, searching their eyes.

Ellie kisses him on the cheek, and smiles up to her boy, “We already did it.”

Somewhere inside, he already knew. He looks on the porch behind them and finds what he was sure would be there, the empty vial.

“Okay…”, he nods, pulling them into an embrace again and kissing their hair, “okay.”

They stay that way for a long time. 

He wants to tell them how thankful he is. That they’re his parents. That he got the chance to know them. That they’re the bravest people he’s ever met. He knows there’s so many things they would say to him as well. 

But they said them all, over an entire life together. 

As he lets them go, and they start to walk inside, he asks, 

“Mama, do you need help getting up the stairs?”

The raven haired woman turns back and looks at her son one last time with a smile, 

“Your Mom’s got me. I love you. _So_ much.”

“I love you too, Mama”.

She disappears inside, and he walks back to the cart he brought them in, and waits, his head in his hands

\----------

Though Dina has gotten weaker, Ellie has stayed strong throughout the years. Maybe it’s been working in the wood shop all this time. She never gave it up, even when things started to get harder.

Ellie helps her slowly up the stairs, one slow step at a time, and they turn into the bedroom they once shared, so very long ago. 

They walk over to the old bed. JJ has cleaned it up, put fresh linens on it, a pair of pillows, and Dina lays down into her old spot, watching her wife curl down next to her.

They stay there, hands under their faces, smiling at each other for a long while.

Ellie has a glint in her eye, and says,

“I remembered a joke I read once, but I’m not sure you’ll find it funny.”

Dina runs the tips of her fingers along Ellie’s cheek,

“What’s not to laugh about now?”

Ellie grins,

“Ok… I once heard a joke about amnesia… but I forgot how it goes.”

It takes Dina a second to laugh, but when she does, it’s full and rich and Ellie laughs with her too.

“That’s _so_ dumb,” Dina says, leaning in and kissing Ellie, “I hated it.”

Ellie pulls her back and kisses her deeply, whispering, “You _love_ it.”

Dina stares into Ellie’s eyes, the eyes she’s traveled into all of her life and still gets lost in, and smiles.

Ellie smiles back, but her lips begin to quiver, a tell tale sign that things will get bad soon. 

Dina’s glad they did this.

She starts to feel a wave of exhaustion come over her, and she knows it won’t be too long now. She’s thankful for it. She wants them to still be them when it happens.

She says softly,

“Tell them to me again.”

Ellie rolls her eyes,

“I’d think you’d be tired of hearing it by now.”

Dina kisses her again, 

“Never.”

Ellie feigns a sigh, and looks into her eyes, as she slowly begins to repeat the vows she wrote for Dina, all those many years ago. She’d had to read them off of the page she had written them down on when they married each other. Said that she was worried they wouldn’t come out right if she didn’t. 

Since then Dina had made her say them again so many times that Ellie had committed them to memory.

“I… don’t believe in luck. Or fate. Or God. But you make me question that. You make me want to.”

Dina snuggles her head into Ellie’s chest, wrapping her arms around her, listening.

“I don’t know how else I can reconcile all the disconnected parts of my life… All the ways it’s derailed and turned. That all of it was just leading to one day in front of a theater when I met you and the rest of my life started.”

Dina turns her head up and looks up at Ellie smiling down at her as she speaks, remembering that day so vividly. She’d never forgotten it.

“Since then you’ve given me so much. A son. A home. More love than I ever could have dreamed. And I want to give you everything… uh… everything I can in return. But I know… I know…”

Ellie’s smile falters, and she sighs,

“I’m sorry, Di… I can’t remember the rest.”

Dina kisses her cheek and smiles,

“That's ok, love. I do”, she says, taking over. “I know there are things I can’t promise you…”

She runs her fingers through Ellie’s hair, tinged by the years with silver.

“I can’t promise you we’ll ever truly be safe. In fact, I’m pretty sure we won’t be.”

She kisses Ellie’s forehead. Ellie had always kept their family safe.

“But I do promise that it doesn’t make a difference however hurt we are, however scared, however sad. No matter what. I will be at your side. Your fiercest supporter, and your truest friend. Without hesitation or doubt.”

She touches Ellies cheeks, lined with age and stress.

“I can’t promise that things will always be easy...”

They hadn’t been, but they had always been beautiful. Dina wouldn’t have changed anything. 

“But I do promise that every hour that I work, everything that I have, and everything that I am, is yours.”

Dina can feel her eyes getting heavy, and she forces them back open. She won’t miss a single moment left with this woman. Not a single moment. 

“I can’t promise that my hands will always be deft and strong, or that my eyes will always be young and bright.”

Tremors shake Dina’s hands as she says it, and Ellie holds them with her own, still steady after all this time, and they hold each other, fingers intertwining as naturally as they breathe.

“But.. but.. I do promise… that when my hands are tired and frail, they’ll still be reaching out for yours, and even when my eyes are old and dim, they’ll still look at you…”

Their eyes find each other, pools of leaf green and warm dark brown, the only things left to see.

“... and see the whole world lighting up.”

They lean into each other and their lips meet, and it’s an entire lifetime of love shared between two who never thought they would have what they got to have. 

What they found in each other. 

Dina is the happiest she’s ever been as she opens her eyes and the darkness starts to close in around the edges of her vision.

All she can see is Ellie.

Her beautiful Ellie, slowly closing her eyes as well.

Before it takes her, she closes out the vow.

“Finally… I can’t promise I’ll love you for the rest of your life…”

Ellie whispers back, 

“... but I swear to god I’m going to love you for the rest of mine.”

The last thing Dina sees is Ellie smiling that big, stupid, wonderful smile that she only smiles for Dina.

And Dina smiles too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Trigger Warning: Ending ones own life the way one chooses._
> 
> So, for those who thought last chapter felt like a conclusion, you were correct. 
> 
> To me, "Shaken by a Low Sound" was never going to be the story of them together, but the road leading back to each other. 
> 
> Writing this has done so much for me to help me process my feelings about the game, and I hope in some way it's helped people who have read it as well. There's so many amazing post-canon fics being written right now, and I'm so honored that so many of you took the time to read this one.
> 
> Now that I'm done, I can finally get back to reading the others as well.
> 
> Thank you all again.
> 
> Additional note: I have decided that I'm making this into a "series" so I can add additional stories into my little corner of the post canon. I don't know when updates will come, but they will.
> 
> Find me on [Tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/whiskeytango8686) . Send a writing prompt for this series if you'd like, maybe I'll run with it.


End file.
